Manus AI Agent: User Agent, robots.txt Rules & Safety Rating

Q: What is the official user-agent string for Manus AI Agent?

The official user-agent string for Manus AI Agent is: Manus-User. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Manus AI Agent by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.

Q: How do I block Manus AI Agent in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: User-agent: Manus-User Disallow: / This instructs Manus AI Agent not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Q: How do I verify if Manus AI Agent is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string Manus-User (case-insensitive: grep -i "Manus-User" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: Manus-User
Category:: AI & LLM Bots
Operator:: Manus
Safety:: Safe
Blocking Impact:: Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:: 2/10
Official docs:: manus.im

What is Manus AI Agent?

Manus AI Agent is an on-demand AI fetcher operated by Manus. It retrieves a page only when a user explicitly asks an AI assistant or agent to read, summarize, or act on a specific URL. Because it is triggered by real user intent rather than bulk crawling, blocking it mainly prevents users from pulling your content into Manus's assistant.

Manus AI Agent is an on-demand AI fetcher operated by Manus. It retrieves a page only when a user explicitly asks an AI assistant or agent to read, summarize, or act on a specific URL. Because it is triggered by real user intent rather than bulk crawling, blocking it mainly prevents users from pulling your content into Manus's assistant. Manus AI Agent uses the user-agent token Manus-User. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block Manus AI Agent?

✅ **No SEO Impact** - Blocking Manus AI Agent does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Manus AI Agent is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block Manus AI Agent with robots.txt

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

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: Manus-User
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: Manus-User
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: Manus-User
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Hard-block Manus AI Agent
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Manus-User") {
    return 403 "Bot blocked";
}

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Hard-block Manus AI Agent
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Manus-User" bad_bot
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot

Meta robots tag

X-Robots-Tag header

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Manus AI Agent safe to allow?

Yes, Manus AI Agent is a **safe and legitimate** crawler operated by Manus. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate Manus AI Agent requests resolve to Manus's domain.

What does Manus AI Agent do?

Understanding Manus AI Agent's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

Fetches a page only when a user asks an AI assistant to read it
Summarizes or extracts the URL the user provided
Triggered by real user intent, not bulk crawling
Low traffic volume compared with training crawlers
Blocking it prevents users from pulling your content into the assistant

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Manus AI Agent?

The official user-agent string for Manus AI Agent is: Manus-User. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Manus AI Agent by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.

Is Manus AI Agent safe?

Yes, Manus AI Agent is a **safe and legitimate** crawler operated by Manus. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Will blocking Manus AI Agent hurt my SEO?

✅ **No SEO Impact** - Blocking Manus AI Agent does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Manus AI Agent is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

How do I block Manus AI Agent in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:

User-agent: Manus-User
Disallow: /

This instructs Manus AI Agent not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Does Manus AI Agent respect robots.txt?

Manus AI Agent is operated by Manus and is expected to fetch and parse /robots.txt before crawling, following RFC 9309. For hard enforcement, combine robots.txt with server-level IP or user-agent blocking.

How do I verify if Manus AI Agent is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string Manus-User (case-insensitive: grep -i "Manus-User" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).