Bot signals — Search & SEO crawler

DuckDuckBot IP addresses

DuckDuckBot and DuckAssistBot

risk.is_crawler Ranges Reviewed

Check an IP

Is this IP really DuckDuckBot?

Checks the address against what DuckDuckBot publishes, the same evidence behind risk.is_crawler.

01 — Verification

How IPAPI.GR verifies DuckDuckBot.

Only from what DuckDuckBot publishes about itself. No third-party blocklists, no behavioural guesses. Live address counts change with every publication, so check the official file for the current list.

02 — In the response

What a match looks like.

A lookup of a DuckDuckBot address sets risk.is_crawler. The flags come with geolocation and network data in the same response, for Pro API keys.

The response says which kind of bot an address belongs to, not which operator. Pair it with the user agent: a request that claims to be DuckDuckBot but doesn't match is unverified.

GET /api/lookup/{ip}?key=PRO_KEY
{
  // … location and network fields …
  "risk": {
    "is_ai": false,
    "is_crawler": true,
    "is_scanner": false
  }
}

03 — Configuration

Allow, block or verify it yourself.

nginx + jq
# 1. Build a geo include from the official file (cron, e.g. hourly).
#    Keep the old file if the download fails or comes back empty.
curl -fsS https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.json \
  | jq -r '.prefixes[] | (.ipv4Prefix // .ipv6Prefix // empty) | "\(.) 1;"' \
  > /etc/nginx/duckduckbot-ranges.conf.new && [ -s /etc/nginx/duckduckbot-ranges.conf.new ] && mv /etc/nginx/duckduckbot-ranges.conf.new /etc/nginx/duckduckbot-ranges.conf \
  && nginx -t -q && nginx -s reload

# 2. In the http block: 1 when the client IP is in the published ranges.
geo $duckduckbot_ip {
    default 0;
    include /etc/nginx/duckduckbot-ranges.conf;
}
Built from duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.json, a JSON file with a prefixes array.

04 — Questions

About DuckDuckBot.

Where does DuckDuckBot publish its IP addresses?

DuckDuckBot publishes its addresses at https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.json. IPAPI.GR reads that publication directly, not a third-party copy.

How often is the DuckDuckBot list refreshed?

IPAPI.GR re-fetches it every hour. If a refresh fails, the previous entries expire after at most 24 hours instead of being trusted forever.

Which risk flag does DuckDuckBot set?

A matching address sets risk.is_crawler in the lookup response. The risk flags are returned for Pro API keys.

Verify DuckDuckBot on every request.

Pro: 40,000,000 requests a day with is_ai, is_crawler and is_scanner in every lookup.