AI crawler profile
What is ImagesiftBot? How to allow or block The Hive's crawler
Operator
The Hive
Purpose
AI model training
robots.txt
Respects robots.txt
Official docs
ImagesiftBot collects images for Hive, whose visual-AI models power content moderation and image search products (Hive also operates reverse image search). If your concern is images being used in AI systems rather than text, this is one of the primary user agents to decide about.
Does ImagesiftBot respect robots.txt?
The bot is documented and states it respects robots.txt; blocking it mainly affects image collection.
Block ImagesiftBot with robots.txt
User-agent: ImagesiftBot Disallow: /
Explicitly allow ImagesiftBot
User-agent: ImagesiftBot Allow: /
Should you block ImagesiftBot?
Blocking ImagesiftBot opts your content out of The Hive's model training — a legitimate choice for original content you don't want reproduced by AI. The trade-off: models trained without your content are less likely to know your brand or recommend it unprompted. There is no direct traffic loss today, since training crawlers don't send visitors. See our guide on whether to block AI bots for the full decision framework.
Check and monitor ImagesiftBot on your site
- AI Crawler Access Checker — see whether your current robots.txt allows or blocks ImagesiftBot.
- robots.txt Generator for AI Bots — build a robots.txt with per-bot rules for all 28 known AI crawlers.
- AI Bot Log Analyzer — paste server logs and count real ImagesiftBot hits, entirely in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
What is ImagesiftBot?
ImagesiftBot is The Hive's web crawler for collecting AI training data. Crawls images across the web for Hive's visual-AI products.
Does ImagesiftBot respect robots.txt?
The bot is documented and states it respects robots.txt; blocking it mainly affects image collection.
How do I block ImagesiftBot?
Add "User-agent: ImagesiftBot" followed by "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt file. The change takes effect the next time the bot fetches your robots.txt.
Does blocking ImagesiftBot hurt my Google rankings?
No. ImagesiftBot is separate from Googlebot, which handles Google Search indexing. Blocking ImagesiftBot has no effect on your traditional search rankings.
How can I tell if ImagesiftBot is crawling my site?
Search your server access logs for the string "ImagesiftBot". Our free AI Bot Log Analyzer does this in your browser: paste a log file and it counts hits per AI crawler, including ImagesiftBot, with per-path breakdowns.
Part of our directory of every known AI crawler, refreshed monthly. Last verified: 2026-07-18.