Why are integrations blocked from accessing my help center?

Question

Why does my help center block access from bots, crawlers, and other integrations? Error logs show that they're blocked with an HTTP 403 error.

Answer

Bot management is applied only to user paths, not API paths. In general, integrations use API paths rather than user paths. If your integration uses a non-API path, you need to change to an appropriate API path as documented in the developer portal.

Is the integration a registered bot?

Check Cloudflare to see if your bot is registered as a verified bot. If so, the bot shouldn't be blocked unless it accesses Zendesk through a proxy that changes the source IP, which is what Cloudflare sees. If this is the case, follow the recommendations in Accessing Zendesk with a reverse proxy.

If the bot is not a registered bot or your integration is still blocked, contact Zendesk Customer Support.

Does the bot check your help center status or uptime?

Zendesk offers several methods for checking platform status:

Receive Email or SMS notifications of status issues

Use the Status API to check the subdomain status

Use the Help Center API to directly query your help center