Published on 2025-08-07T06:18:08Z

360Spider

360Spider is the official web crawler for Haosou (also known as 360 Search), a prominent Chinese search engine operated by the internet security company Qihoo 360. Its primary function is to browse and index web content to make it discoverable for Haosou's users, focusing heavily on the Chinese internet market. For website owners, being crawled by 360Spider can increase visibility and drive traffic from this audience.

What is 360Spider?

360Spider is the official web crawler for Haosou (formerly 360 Search), a major Chinese search engine operated by Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. This bot systematically scans the web to discover, analyze, and index content for inclusion in Haosou's search results. It identifies itself in server logs with user-agent strings like 360Spider or 360Spider(compatible; HaosouSpider; http://www.haosou.com/help/help_3_2.html). As a conventional search engine crawler, it navigates from link to link to discover new pages and sends the collected information back to Haosou's indexing servers.

Why is 360Spider crawling my site?

The presence of 360Spider in your server logs indicates that it is visiting your site to gather information for Haosou's search index. This is standard behavior for a search engine bot aiming to make your content discoverable to its users, who are primarily in the Chinese market. The frequency of its visits can depend on factors like your site's popularity, how often you update your content, and the relevance of your content to Haosou's audience. The crawling is considered legitimate unless you have explicitly blocked it through your robots.txt file.

What is the purpose of 360Spider?

The principal purpose of 360Spider is to build and maintain the search database for the Haosou search engine. By crawling websites, it ensures Haosou has an up-to-date index, with a particular focus on content relevant to Chinese internet users. The data collected helps determine page rankings and search result quality. For website owners, having your content indexed by 360Spider can increase your visibility and potentially drive traffic from Haosou's significant user base in China. While this offers a clear benefit, some administrators may have concerns about the server load from its crawling activity.

How do I block 360Spider?

If you wish to prevent 360Spider from crawling your website, you can add a rule to your robots.txt file. This file provides instructions to web crawlers about which areas of your site they should not access.

To block 360Spider, add the following lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: 360Spider
Disallow: /

How to verify the authenticity of the user-agent operated by Qihoo 360?

Reverse IP lookup technique

To verify user-agent authenticity, you can use host linux command two times with the IP address of the requester.

```
> host IPAddressOfRequest
```
This command returns the reverse lookup hostname (e.g., 4.4.8.8.in-addr.arpa.).

> host ReverseDNSFromTheOutputOfFirstRequest

If the output matches the original IP address and the domain is associated with a trusted operator (e.g., Qihoo 360), the user-agent can be considered legitimate.

IP list lookup technique

Some operators provide a public list of IP addresses used by their crawlers. This list can be cross-referenced to verify a user-agent's authenticity. However, both operators and website owners may find it challenging to maintain an up-to-date list, so use this method with caution and in conjunction with other verification techniques.