PetalBot
PetalBot is Huawei's crawler. It feeds Petal Search, the search engine installed by default on Huawei phones (which don't carry Google), and other services in its ecosystem. It works like a conventional search crawler and behaves respectfully. If you have customers with Huawei devices, this bot is how they find you.
- User-agent
PetalBotMozilla/5.0 (compatible;PetalBot;+https://webmaster.petalsearch.com/site/petalbot)- Does it respect robots.txt?
- Yes
- Official documentation
- https://webmaster.petalsearch.com/site/petalbot
How to allow it in your robots.txt
User-agent: PetalBot
Allow: /How to block it (not recommended)
User-agent: PetalBot
Disallow: /Frequently asked questions
Should I block PetalBot?
There's no reason to. It's a conventional, respectful search crawler. Blocking it only removes your visibility to the millions of Huawei phone users, who depend on Petal Search because they don't have Google.
Does PetalBot respect robots.txt?
Yes. Huawei officially documents it and confirms it follows standard web protocols, including robots.txt directives targeting the user-agent "PetalBot".
How do I know if PetalBot visits my site?
Search for "PetalBot" in your server logs. Its user-agent includes a link to Petal Search's official webmaster page where you can verify its authenticity.