Bytespider

Bytespider is the web crawler operated by ByteDance, the technology company behind well-known platforms such as TikTok. It functions as an indexing bot that systematically scans the web to discover and collect public content. This data is used to support ByteDance's various services. The crawler identifies itself in server logs with the user-agent string Bytespider. It behaves like other legitimate search engine crawlers, following links to discover new content and adhering to standard web protocols.

Bytespider is visiting your website to discover and index content that may be valuable to ByteDance's platforms and services. It gathers publicly available information, including text and media, to enhance its understanding of web content. The frequency of its crawls is determined by factors like your site's popularity, how often you update your content, and its relevance to ByteDance's services. This crawling activity is generally considered authorized for public web pages, similar to crawlers from Google or Bing.

The principal purpose of Bytespider is to collect and index web content to support the vast ecosystem of ByteDance applications, including TikTok. The data it gathers helps improve the company's algorithms, power search and recommendation features, and deliver more relevant content to its users. For website owners, having your content indexed by Bytespider could lead to increased visibility across ByteDance's platforms, although the specific benefits depend on how the indexed content is utilized by their services.

If you wish to prevent Bytespider from accessing your website, you can add a disallow rule for it in your robots.txt file. This is the standard method for instructing web crawlers.

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

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /