What is Synthetic Bot?
Direct Answer: Datadog Synthetic Bot, operated by DataDog, for monitoring applications and API endpoints via simulated user requests.
Datadog Synthetics gives you a new layer of visibility on the Datadog platform. By monitoring your applications and API endpoints via simulated user requests and browser rendering.
User-Agent Identification
The following user-agent strings identify Synthetic Bot in your live traffic data:
Datadog Synthetic
robots.txt Rules for Synthetic Bot
Respects robots.txt: No
This bot does not commit to following robots.txt
Synthetic Bot does not officially follow robots.txt directives. The only reliable way to control access is through server-side blocking (IP filtering, user-agent rules in your web server config) combined with log monitoring to verify effectiveness.
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Crawl Behavior
Frequency:Not Documented
Request Pattern:Simulated User Requests And Browser Rendering
JavaScript Rendering:Yes — this bot can execute JavaScript and render pages.
Crawl Activity Index
Relative crawl activity for Synthetic Bot over the past 28 days. Higher values indicate increased crawling intensity compared to the period baseline.
View recent activity data (last 7 days)
| Date | Activity Index |
|---|---|
| Mar 26, 2026 | 88.0 |
| Mar 27, 2026 | 82.7 |
| Mar 28, 2026 | 83.1 |
| Mar 29, 2026 | 81.8 |
| Mar 30, 2026 | 87.3 |
| Mar 31, 2026 | 90.2 |
| Apr 1, 2026 | 88.8 |
Source: Cloudflare Radar
Why track Synthetic Bot traffic?
Distinguish monitoring traffic from real crawler activity. Synthetic Bot checks your site availability at regular intervals. Without proper identification, these requests can inflate your bot traffic metrics and distort crawl analysis.
Validate monitoring coverage. Track which pages Synthetic Bot checks and how frequently, so your monitoring setup matches your infrastructure requirements.
Log Verification
To verify Synthetic Bot traffic in your live traffic data:
- Search access logs for the user-agent strings listed above
- Check if the IP addresses match documented ranges (if provided by DataDog)
- Verify the crawl pattern matches documented behavior
- Use reverse DNS lookup for additional verification if available
Note: Observed behavior in production environments may differ from official documentation. Live traffic monitoring provides the only reliable verification of actual bot behavior.
Undocumented Information
The following information is not officially documented for Synthetic Bot:
- crawl frequency
- IP verification
- JavaScript rendering details
Official Documentation
View Official Synthetic Bot Documentation →
Information sourced from official documentation. Content generated with AI assistance.