Hide backlinks. Hiding your backlinks will not let your competitors see the backlinks you have on your website.
There are two ways to hide your backlinks, 1. by editing the robots.txt file. and 2. by editing the .htaccess file.
To block Ahrefs, your robots.txt should look like this:
User-agent: AhrefsBot
Disallow: /
Recommendations from ahrefs site: https://ahrefs.com/sv/robot
To block Semrush, your robots.txt should look like this:
User-agent: SemrushBot
Disallow: /
Moz uses Rogerbot and Dotbot to crawl. Former for site analysis, the latter for a Link index.
Other services use their own custom bots.
Here’s a list to ban the most common crawlers :
User-agent: Rogerbot
User-agent: Exabot
User-agent: MJ12bot
User-agent: Dotbot
User-agent: Gigabot
User-agent: AhrefsBot
User-agent: BlackWidow
User-agent: ChinaClaw
User-agent: Custo
User-agent: DISCo
User-agent: Download\ Demon
User-agent: eCatch
User-agent: EirGrabber
User-agent: EmailSiphon
User-agent: EmailWolf
User-agent: Express\ WebPictures
User-agent: ExtractorPro
User-agent: EyeNetIE
User-agent: FlashGet
User-agent: GetRight
User-agent: GetWeb!
User-agent: Go!Zilla
User-agent: Go-Ahead-Got-It
User-agent: GrabNet
User-agent: Grafula
User-agent: HMView
User-agent: HTTrack
User-agent: Image\ Stripper
User-agent: Image\ Sucker
User-agent: Indy\ Library
User-agent: InterGET
User-agent: Internet\ Ninja
User-agent: JetCar
User-agent: JOC\ Web\ Spider
User-agent: larbin
User-agent: LeechFTP
User-agent: Mass\ Downloader
User-agent: MIDown\ tool
User-agent: Mister\ PiX
User-agent: Navroad
User-agent: NearSite
User-agent: NetAnts
User-agent: NetSpider
User-agent: Net\ Vampire
User-agent: NetZIP
User-agent: Octopus
User-agent: Offline\ Explorer
User-agent: Offline\ Navigator
User-agent: PageGrabber
User-agent: Papa\ Foto
User-agent: pavuk
User-agent: pcBrowser
User-agent: RealDownload
User-agent: ReGet
User-agent: SiteSnagger
User-agent: SmartDownload
User-agent: SuperBot
User-agent: SuperHTTP
User-agent: Surfbot
User-agent: tAkeOut
User-agent: Teleport\ Pro
User-agent: VoidEYE
User-agent: Web\ Image\ Collector
User-agent: Web\ Sucker
User-agent: WebAuto
User-agent: WebCopier
User-agent: WebFetch
User-agent: WebGo\ IS
User-agent: WebLeacher
User-agent: WebReaper
User-agent: WebSauger
User-agent: Website\ eXtractor
User-agent: Website\ Quester
User-agent: WebStripper
User-agent: WebWhacker
User-agent: WebZIP
User-agent: Wget
User-agent: Widow
User-agent: WWWOFFLE
User-agent: Xaldon\ WebSpider
User-agent: Zeus
Disallow: /
Once you have set those sites blocked on your website – data of your website will not show up on them.
The second way to hide your backlinks is to edit your .htacess file
Here is an example of how this can be done. Just add this code to your .htacess file:
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*aboundexbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ahrefsbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*backlinkcrawler.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*blekkobo.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*blexbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*dotbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*dsearch.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*exabot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ezooms.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*gigabot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ia_archiver.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*linkdexbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*lipperhey spider.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*majestic-12.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*majestic-seo.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*meanpathbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*megaindex.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*mj12bot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ncbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*nutch.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*pagesinventory.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*rogerbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*scoutjet.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*searchmetricsbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*semrushbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*seokicks-robot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*sistrix.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*sitebot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*spbot.* botstop
<Limit GET POST HEAD>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=botstop
</Limit>
