Sidetrade Indexer Bot: User Agent, robots.txt Rules & Safety

Q: How do I block Sidetrade Indexer Bot in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: User-agent: Sidetrade Indexer Bot Disallow: / This instructs Sidetrade Indexer Bot 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.

Q: How do I verify if Sidetrade Indexer Bot is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string Sidetrade Indexer Bot (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "Sidetrade Indexer Bot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For Sidetrade Indexer Bot specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: Sidetrade Indexer Bot
Category:: SEO Tools
Operator:: Sidetrade
Safety:: Safe
Blocking Impact:: Varies - Evaluate before blocking
SEO Impact Score:: 0/10
Official docs:: www.sidetrade.com

What is Sidetrade Indexer Bot?

A crawler used by Sidetrade for their B2B AI platform.

A crawler used by Sidetrade for their B2B AI platform. Sidetrade Indexer Bot is a commercial SEO analytics crawler operated by Sidetrade. It builds backlink graphs, crawls for technical SEO issues, and tracks keyword rankings. The user-agent Sidetrade Indexer Bot is well-known and respected in the SEO industry. Blocking it removes your domain from Sidetrade's index, preventing competitors from analysing your backlink profile via their platform. However, other Sidetrade users also lose visibility into links pointing TO your site - weigh this trade-off carefully.

What happens if you block Sidetrade Indexer Bot?

❓ **Impact Unknown** - The SEO consequences of blocking Sidetrade Indexer Bot are not fully documented. Before blocking, check your analytics to confirm whether this bot generates referral traffic, review your server logs for crawl frequency, and test in a staging environment if possible.

Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block Sidetrade Indexer Bot with robots.txt

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

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: Sidetrade Indexer Bot
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: Sidetrade Indexer Bot
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: Sidetrade Indexer Bot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Hard-block Sidetrade Indexer Bot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Sidetrade\ Indexer\ Bot") {
    return 403 "Bot blocked";
}

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Hard-block Sidetrade Indexer Bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Sidetrade\ Indexer\ Bot" 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 Sidetrade Indexer Bot safe to allow?

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

What does Sidetrade Indexer Bot do?

Understanding Sidetrade Indexer Bot's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

Analyzes website structure and SEO health
Tracks backlinks and referring domains
Monitors keyword rankings and competitor analysis
Crawls sites for technical SEO audits
Generates reports for SEO professionals

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Sidetrade Indexer Bot?

The official user-agent string for Sidetrade Indexer Bot is: Sidetrade Indexer Bot. 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 Sidetrade Indexer Bot by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP - legitimate bots resolve back to their operator's domain.

Is Sidetrade Indexer Bot safe?

Yes, Sidetrade Indexer Bot is a **safe and legitimate** crawler. It is operated by Sidetrade, which publicly documents its crawler at an official URL and follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309). The user-agent string Sidetrade Indexer Bot 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 Sidetrade Indexer Bot hurt my SEO?

❓ **Impact Unknown** - The SEO consequences of blocking Sidetrade Indexer Bot are not fully documented. Before blocking, check your analytics to confirm whether this bot generates referral traffic, review your server logs for crawl frequency, and test in a staging environment if possible.

How do I block Sidetrade Indexer Bot in robots.txt?

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

User-agent: Sidetrade Indexer Bot
Disallow: /

This instructs Sidetrade Indexer Bot 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 Sidetrade Indexer Bot respect robots.txt?

Yes - Sidetrade Indexer Bot is a well-behaved bot operated by Sidetrade. It fetches and parses /robots.txt before crawling any page, following RFC 9309.

How do I verify if Sidetrade Indexer Bot is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string Sidetrade Indexer Bot (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "Sidetrade Indexer Bot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For Sidetrade Indexer Bot specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

What is the crawl frequency of Sidetrade Indexer Bot?

Sidetrade Indexer Bot crawls at a moderate rate. If you notice excessive traffic in your logs, you can add a Crawl-delay directive:

User-agent: Sidetrade Indexer Bot
Crawl-delay: 10

(10 second delay between requests).

Can I block Sidetrade Indexer Bot from specific pages only?

Yes. Instead of a global Disallow: / you can restrict Sidetrade Indexer Bot to specific paths:

User-agent: Sidetrade Indexer Bot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /staging/
Allow: /

This allows Sidetrade Indexer Bot everywhere except the listed paths. Path matching in robots.txt uses prefix matching - Disallow: /private/ blocks /private/page.html but NOT /public/private/.

Why would I want to block Sidetrade Indexer Bot?

There are two main reasons to block Sidetrade Indexer Bot: 1. **Competitive intelligence**: Sidetrade users (your competitors) can analyse your backlink profile, keyword rankings, and site structure. Blocking prevents this. 2. **Crawl budget**: If your site is large, SEO tool crawlers consume crawl bandwidth without contributing to search rankings. Blocking frees up server resources for search engine bots. The trade-off: you also become invisible in Sidetrade's backlink database, meaning links pointing TO your site from other domains won't appear in competitor reports either.