How to block ClearscopeBot
Operated by Mushi Labs. Clearscope is an AI-driven SEO content optimization platform developed by Mushi Labs. It assists content creators, marketers, and SEO professionals in producing high-quality, search-optimized content by providing real-time keyword recommendations, content grading, and insights into search intent. By analyzing top-performing content, Clearscope offers actionable suggestions to enhance content relevance and visibility in search engine results.
How it identifies itself
UA Clearscopebot or similar
robots.txt
What the agent asks to be told. It obeys this or it does not — nothing enforces it.
User-agent: Clearscopebot Disallow: /
nginx
In the server block, then reload.
# In the server block. 403 rather than 444: a closed connection tells the
# operator nothing, and an agent that gets a status code can log it.
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(Clearscopebot/|Clearscopebot)") {
return 403;
}
Apache
In .htaccess or the vhost.
BrowserMatchNoCase "Clearscopebot/" bad_bot
BrowserMatchNoCase "Clearscopebot" bad_bot
<RequireAll>
Require all granted
Require not env bad_bot
</RequireAll>
Cloudflare
Security → WAF → Custom rules.
# Security → WAF → Custom rules, action: Block (http.user_agent contains "Clearscopebot/") or (http.user_agent contains "Clearscopebot")
WordPress
A child theme's functions.php, or a small plugin.
// functions.php of a child theme, or a small plugin. Runs before WordPress
// builds the page, so a blocked agent costs one PHP process and no queries.
add_action('init', function () {
$agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
foreach (['Clearscopebot/', 'Clearscopebot'] as $needle) {
if (stripos($agent, $needle) !== false) {
status_header(403);
exit('Blocked: ClearscopeBot');
}
}
});
robots.txt is a request. The rules below it are the wall.
ClearscopeBot publishes a token, so the directive above will work for as long as it keeps honouring it — and nothing except its own good manners makes it. The server rules match on a header the requester sets, which stops the agent that says who it is and not the one that copies somebody else's name. Botscope verifies identity against DNS and published address ranges, records which check decided each request, and shows you the ones that lied.