How to Block TikTok ByteSpider Bot ByteDance
- Monday, August 19, 2024
ByteDance is a Chinese multinational internet technology company headquartered in Beijing and legally domiciled in the Cayman Islands. It was founded by Zhang Yiming in 2012. ByteDance is known for its popular social media and entertainment platforms, including:
- TikTok (Douyin in China): a short-form video-sharing app
- Douyin: the Chinese version of TikTok
- Helo: a social media app for Indian markets
- BaBe: a news and content aggregation app
- Toutiao: a news and content discovery platform
ByteDance's platforms focus on AI-driven content creation, curation, and distribution. The company has become one of the largest and most influential technology companies in the world, with a significant global presence.
Update Robots.txt
Add the following lines to your website's robots.txt file to disallow Bytespider. Although it relies on the bot's compliance, ByteDance ignores this rule:
User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /Effortlessly prevent unwanted bots from crawling your website by adding a simple code to your .HTACCESS file. Use the following code to block specific bots, including ByteDance's crawlers, from accessing your site:
Block via .HTACCESS file
For Apache:
### Block Chinese Bots ###
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Bytedance|Bytespider [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
For Nginx:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Bytespider") {
return 403;
}This code will instruct the bots to stay away from your website, giving you control over who can crawl and index your content.
Conclusion
Use a service like Cloudflare or a web application firewall (WAF) to block specific crawlers, including ByteDance's. Block the IP ranges used by ByteDance's crawlers. Integrate CAPTCHA and other bot protection mechanisms on your forms and critical endpoints to deter automated access. You can find their IP ranges on their website or through WHOIS lookup. Remember to review and update your blocking methods regularly, as crawlers can change their behavior or IP addresses over time.
Joydeep Deb is a Senior Digital Marketer and Project Manager with strong experience in Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Online Brand Management, Marketing Campaigns, Project Management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), PPC, eMail Marketing, Web Analytics, Web Technologies, Web Design and Development.
With an MBA in Marketing. IIM Calcutta Alumini. Lives in Bangalore, Karnataka - India.