Safe AI & LLM Bots

cohere-ai

Operated by Cohere

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
cohere-ai
Category:
AI & LLM Bots
Operator:
Cohere
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10

What is cohere-ai?

The web crawler for Cohere, an AI platform focused on enterprise LLMs. It collects data to train their models.

The web crawler for Cohere, an AI platform focused on enterprise LLMs. It collects data to train their models. cohere-ai is an AI data-collection crawler operated by Cohere. It harvests web content to build or expand training datasets for large language models (LLMs). Unlike search crawlers, cohere-ai does NOT influence your page ranking in any search engine. The user-agent string cohere-ai can be safely blocked via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard without any SEO penalty. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block cohere-ai?

✅ **No SEO Impact** - Blocking cohere-ai does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. cohere-ai is an AI training crawler, not a search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent: cohere-ai / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty. This is the recommended approach if you want to opt out of Cohere's LLM training datasets.
Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block cohere-ai with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: cohere-ai</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: cohere-ai Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: cohere-ai Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: cohere-ai Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block cohere-ai if ($http_user_agent ~* "cohere\-ai") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block cohere-ai SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "cohere\-ai" bad_bot Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=bad_bot
Meta robots tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
X-Robots-Tag header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is cohere-ai safe to allow?

Yes, cohere-ai is a **safe and legitimate** crawler. It is operated by Cohere, which publicly documents its crawler at an official URL and follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309). The user-agent string cohere-ai is verifiable via reverse-DNS lookup on the crawling IP addresses. You can safely allow it unless you have a specific reason to block (e.g., AI training opt-out or SEO tool visibility).
Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate cohere-ai requests resolve to cohere's domain.

What does cohere-ai do?

Understanding cohere-ai's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

  • Collects web content for AI model training
  • Gathers data to improve language understanding
  • Scrapes text, code, and other content for datasets
  • May be used for chatbot and AI assistant development
  • Typically does NOT affect search engine rankings

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for cohere-ai?
The official user-agent string for cohere-ai is: cohere-ai. This is the exact string you must use in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. User-agent matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive, but the string must be spelled correctly. You can verify that a request genuinely comes from cohere-ai by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP - legitimate bots resolve back to their operator's domain.
Is cohere-ai safe?
Yes, cohere-ai is a **safe and legitimate** crawler. It is operated by Cohere, which publicly documents its crawler at an official URL and follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309). The user-agent string cohere-ai is verifiable via reverse-DNS lookup on the crawling IP addresses. You can safely allow it unless you have a specific reason to block (e.g., AI training opt-out or SEO tool visibility).
Will blocking cohere-ai hurt my SEO?
✅ **No SEO Impact** - Blocking cohere-ai does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. cohere-ai is an AI training crawler, not a search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent: cohere-ai / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty. This is the recommended approach if you want to opt out of Cohere's LLM training datasets.
How do I block cohere-ai in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: 
User-agent: cohere-ai
Disallow: /
This instructs cohere-ai not to crawl any path on your site. The Disallow: / directive covers the entire domain including subfolders. To only block specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/). Note: robots.txt is publicly readable - any bot or human can inspect it at yourdomain.com/robots.txt.
Does cohere-ai respect robots.txt?
Yes - cohere-ai is a well-behaved bot operated by Cohere. It fetches and parses /robots.txt before crawling any page, following RFC 9309.
How do I verify if cohere-ai is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string cohere-ai (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "cohere-ai" /var/log/nginx/access.log). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For cohere-ai specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).
What is the crawl frequency of cohere-ai?
cohere-ai crawls at a moderate rate. If you notice excessive traffic in your logs, you can add a Crawl-delay directive: 
User-agent: cohere-ai
Crawl-delay: 10
(10 second delay between requests).
Can I block cohere-ai from specific pages only?
Yes. Instead of a global Disallow: / you can restrict cohere-ai to specific paths: 
User-agent: cohere-ai
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /staging/
Allow: /
This allows cohere-ai everywhere except the listed paths. Path matching in robots.txt uses prefix matching - Disallow: /private/ blocks /private/page.html but NOT /public/private/.
Does blocking cohere-ai prevent AI training on my content?
Blocking cohere-ai via robots.txt signals to Cohere that your content should not be used for AI training. However, robots.txt is a **voluntary** protocol - there is no technical enforcement. For stronger protection: 1. Add <meta name="cohere-ai" content="noai, noimageai, noindex"> to your pages. 2. Add a llms.txt file at your domain root (emerging standard). 3. Use Cloudflare WAF or Nginx to return 403 for this user-agent. 4. Consider IP blocklists for Cohere's known crawler IP ranges.
Is there an alternative to robots.txt to opt out of cohere-ai?
Yes. Several additional opt-out mechanisms exist for AI crawlers: • **Meta tag**: <meta name="cohere-ai" content="noindex"> • **X-Robots-Tag HTTP header**: X-Robots-Tag: noai, noimageai • **llms.txt**: Add a /llms.txt file (similar to robots.txt but for LLMs) • **Server block**: Return 403 or 429 for this user-agent via WAF or Nginx Using multiple layers provides the strongest protection.

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