What is DuckAssistBot, is it training AI on my site, and if I block it in robots.txt will my pages disappear from DuckDuckGo search results?

What should I check, step by step?

1. Know which bot is which: DuckAssistBot fetches pages for Search Assist answers; DuckDuckBot is DuckDuckGo's general crawler. A rule for one doesn't apply to the other.

2. To opt out of being a Search Assist source only, add "User-agent: DuckAssistBot" followed by "Disallow: /". DuckDuckGo says the change takes effect after 72 hours and doesn't affect organic rankings or inclusion in its results.
3. Don't block it just to stop AI training. DuckDuckGo states DuckAssistBot data "is not used in any way to train AI models", so blocking it only removes you as a cited source in Search Assist.
4. If a broad rule in your * group disallows unknown bots, add an explicit DuckAssistBot group with Allow: lines for the sections you want cited. A crawler follows only the most specific group that names it.
5. If you want out of DuckDuckGo's regular links, DuckAssistBot isn't the lever. DuckDuckGo says it sources traditional links largely from Bing and also runs DuckDuckBot.
6. Verify claimed DuckAssistBot traffic against duckduckgo.com/duckassistbot.json before treating it as DuckDuckGo. On November 11, 2026 the list held 486 IPv4 /32 prefixes, with a creation time of September 1, 2026.
7. Expect 72 hours after a change before judging whether it worked. If DuckAssistBot still fetches disallowed pages after that, DuckDuckGo gives crawling@duckduckgo.com for opt-out problems; keep dated copies of your robots.txt and the log lines.

What is DuckAssistBot, and does DuckDuckGo use it to train AI?

DuckDuckGo's help page (checked November 11, 2026) describes DuckAssistBot as a web crawler for DuckDuckGo Search that crawls pages in real time for its AI-assisted answers, which prominently cite their sources. The same page says: "This data is not used in any way to train AI models." Its user agent appears as "DuckAssistBot/1.2; (+http://duckduckgo.com/duckassistbot.html)".

• Those answers are Search Assist. DuckDuckGo's Search Assist page says it scans the web for relevant content, generates a brief answer and always links directly to one or two sources. Users can set how often it appears (often, sometimes, on-demand or never), so whether a given searcher sees an answer citing you also depends on their setting.
• DuckDuckBot is a different crawler. DuckDuckGo says its job is to improve search results and that it respects robots.txt; its user agent is "DuckDuckBot/1.1; (+http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html)" and it has its own IP list. DuckDuckGo also says the traditional links and images in its results come largely from Bing.

Does blocking DuckAssistBot remove your site from DuckDuckGo search results?

DuckDuckGo says publishers can opt out of being a potential source for AI-assisted answers by disallowing the DuckAssistBot user agent in robots.txt, that the change takes effect after 72 hours, and that opting out "does not impact organic search rankings and will not affect whether or not websites appear in our search results."

• Large publishers have made different calls. Fetched on November 11, 2026, the robots.txt files of nytimes.com, bbc.co.uk and amazon.com each had a DuckAssistBot group with Disallow: /; theguardian.com listed it in a shared group of about three dozen named bots above Disallow: /; and theverge.com allowed DuckAssistBot only under /sp/ and disallowed the rest, a pattern that keeps chosen sections citable.
• Robots.txt groups don't inherit. Under RFC 9309 a crawler follows the group that names it and falls back to the * group only if none does, so a DuckAssistBot group replaces your * rules for that bot entirely. Copy any Disallow: lines you still need, such as private or account paths, into the DuckAssistBot group if you add one.

How do you verify a request really comes from DuckAssistBot?

DuckDuckGo publishes DuckAssistBot's addresses at duckduckgo.com/duckassistbot.json. Fetched on November 11, 2026, the file held 486 IPv4 prefixes, all single addresses (/32), with a creation time of September 1, 2026. DuckDuckGo documents no reverse DNS pattern and no request signature for it, so the IP list is the check.

• A request whose user agent says DuckAssistBot from an address outside the list isn't DuckDuckGo's. Refresh the list on a schedule rather than hardcoding it, and keep DuckDuckBot's separate list for DuckDuckBot traffic.
• robots.txt records a preference; it doesn't stop a client that ignores it. If you need to enforce a block, add an edge rule that returns 403 to the DuckAssistBot user agent, and log both verified and unverified hits so you can show what reached you after the 72-hour window.