Safe Search Engines

Teoma

Operated by Ask

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
Teoma
Category:
Search Engines
Operator:
Ask
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Critical - Blocking removes you from search results
SEO Impact Score:
10/10
Official docs:
en.wikipedia.org

What is Teoma?

Teoma is the crawler for the Ask.com search engine. It uses a unique algorithm based on subject-specific popularity.

Teoma is the crawler for the Ask.com search engine. It uses a unique algorithm based on subject-specific popularity. Teoma is a production-grade search engine crawler operated by Ask. It uses a distributed crawl infrastructure that respects crawl-delay directives, follows RFC 9309 (robots.txt) spec, and processes Sitemaps to prioritise fresh content. The user-agent string Teoma must be whitelisted if your site uses rate-limiting or WAF rules. Blocking impact is Critical - Blocking removes you from search results.

What happens if you block Teoma?

⛔ **Critical Impact** - Blocking Teoma will stop Ask from crawling and indexing your pages. Within days or weeks you may see pages drop out of Ask's search index entirely, resulting in a significant loss of organic search traffic. This is the most severe possible SEO consequence. Only do this intentionally, for example if you are migrating to a different search engine or decommissioning a domain. If you accidentally blocked Teoma, remove the rule immediately and request re-indexing via Ask's webmaster tools.
Never block - it will remove your site from major search results.

How to block Teoma with robots.txt

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

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: Teoma Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: Teoma Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: Teoma Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block Teoma if ($http_user_agent ~* "Teoma") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block Teoma SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Teoma" 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 Teoma safe to allow?

Yes, Teoma is a **safe and legitimate** crawler. It is operated by Ask, which publicly documents its crawler at an official URL and follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309). The user-agent string Teoma 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 Teoma requests resolve to ask's domain.

What does Teoma do?

Understanding Teoma's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

  • Crawls and indexes web pages for search results
  • Discovers new and updated content on your website
  • Analyzes page structure, content, and links for ranking
  • Renders JavaScript to understand dynamic content
  • Checks for mobile-friendliness and page speed

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Teoma?
The official user-agent string for Teoma is: Teoma. 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 Teoma by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP - legitimate bots resolve back to their operator's domain.
Is Teoma safe?
Yes, Teoma is a **safe and legitimate** crawler. It is operated by Ask, which publicly documents its crawler at an official URL and follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309). The user-agent string Teoma 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 Teoma hurt my SEO?
⛔ **Critical Impact** - Blocking Teoma will stop Ask from crawling and indexing your pages. Within days or weeks you may see pages drop out of Ask's search index entirely, resulting in a significant loss of organic search traffic. This is the most severe possible SEO consequence. Only do this intentionally, for example if you are migrating to a different search engine or decommissioning a domain. If you accidentally blocked Teoma, remove the rule immediately and request re-indexing via Ask's webmaster tools.
How do I block Teoma in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: 
User-agent: Teoma
Disallow: /
This instructs Teoma 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 Teoma respect robots.txt?
Yes - Teoma is a well-behaved bot operated by Ask. It fetches and parses /robots.txt before crawling any page, following RFC 9309.
How do I verify if Teoma is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string Teoma (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "Teoma" /var/log/nginx/access.log). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For Teoma specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).
What is the crawl frequency of Teoma?
Critical-impact search crawlers like Teoma typically crawl popular pages daily and less popular pages weekly. You can manage crawl rate via the crawl-delay directive or via the search console.
Can I block Teoma from specific pages only?
Yes. Instead of a global Disallow: / you can restrict Teoma to specific paths: 
User-agent: Teoma
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /staging/
Allow: /
This allows Teoma everywhere except the listed paths. Path matching in robots.txt uses prefix matching - Disallow: /private/ blocks /private/page.html but NOT /public/private/.
How do I check if Teoma is blocked by my robots.txt?
Use Google's robots.txt Tester in Search Console, or a third-party checker to simulate a Teoma request. You can also manually check by opening https://aicrawlercheck.com/robots.txt and scanning for Teoma entries. If a block exists, immediately test it against your most important URLs using the Google Search Console URL Inspection tool.
My site is blocked by Teoma in Search Console - what do I do?
1. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for any User-agent: Teoma or User-agent: * Disallow rules covering your key pages. 2. Remove or restrict the blocking rules. 3. Validate via Google Search Console → robots.txt Tester. 4. Request re-indexing using the URL Inspection tool. 5. Wait 1-2 weeks for re-crawl. Monitor Coverage report for recovery.

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