Search Bots
What is a search bot?
A search bot, sometimes called a spider, is a robot that continuously browses the internet, usually for the purpose of building a search index.
Bots can artificially inflate traffic numbers, so it’s important to be aware of their existence.
There also other types of bots used for click fraud. For more information, click here.
Search bots and Linkly
Linkly can detect search bots and spiders that deliberately reveal themselves. You can see which click have been attributed to the bots in the ‘Bots’ section of the traffic report.
See search bots and spiders on the traffic report tabs
Blocking Bots from Following Links
Linkly can block robots and search spiders from following your link.
To block robots and search spiders:
- Click Block bots & spiders.
- Click the checkbox Block robots.
Robots that try to follow this link will be shown a “404 not found”. Traffic will from bots will not be recorded in this case.
Don’t block bots if you intend to share your link on social media. Many bots exist for legitimate purposes (for example, creating previews of links for social media apps) that won’t function if you block them.
Click ‘Block robots’ to block robots from following your links.
List of Search Bots
Below is a list of search bots and their user-agents that Linkly identifies, and can be blocked if necessary.
- 200pleasebot 200PleaseBot
- 360spider 360Spider
- abot CrawlDaddy, abot
- addthis AddThis
- adldxbot Microsoft Bing Ads
- admantx ADmantX Platform Semantic Analyzer
- adsbot-google Google Adwords
- advbot AdvBot
- ahrefsbot Ahrefs backlinks research tool
- alexa Alexa Crawler
- apache-httpclient Java http library
- apachebench ApacheBench (ab)
- apis-google APIs-Google
- appengine-google Google App Engine
- applebot Apple Bot
- archive.org_bot Internet Archive (archive.org)
- ask jeeves Ask Jeeves
- asynchttpclient Java http and WebSocket client library
- awe.sm Awe.sm URL expander
- baidu Baidu
- bdcbot Big Data Corp
- bingbot Microsoft Bing
- bingpreview Microsoft Bing preview
- bitlybot bit.ly bot
- blekkobot Blekkobot
- blexbot BLEXBot (webmeup)
- bot@linkfluence.net Linkfluence bot
- bufferbot BufferBot
- buibui-checkbot buibui
- butterfly Topsy Labs
- buzztalk buzztalk
- catchbot CatchBot (catchbot.com)
- check_http Nagios monitor
- cliqzbot Cliqzbot
- cmradar/0.1 CMRadar/0.1
- coldfusion ColdFusion http library
- commoncrawl CCBot
- comodo-webinspector-crawler Comodo
- crowsnest Crowsnest
- curabot cura.yt
- curl curl unix CLI http client
- dap/nethttp DAP/NetHTTP
- datagnionbot datagnion.com/bot.html
- daumoa Korean portal and search engine indexing bot
- developers.google.com/+/web/snippet/ Google Plus
- diffbot Diffbot
- digitalpersona fingerprint software HP Fingerprint scanner
- domain re-animator bot Domain Re-Animator Bot
- domainsbot DomainsBot
- domaintunocrawler DomainTuno
- dotbot Dot Bot
- duckduck Duck Duck Go
- elb-healthchecker AWS ELB HealthChecker
- embedly Embedly
- eoaagent EOAAgent
- eventmachine httpclient Ruby http library
- everyonesocialbot EveryoneSocial
- evrinid Evri bot
- exabot Exalead's bot
- exaleadcloudview ExaleadCloudView
- facebookexternalhit Facebook Bot
- facebot Facebook Bot
- feedburner RSS bot
- feedfetcher-google Google Feedfetcher
- findxbot Findxbot
- flipboardproxy FlipboardProxy
- friendfeedbot FriendFeed
- genieo Genieo Web filter bot
- getprismatic.com getprismatic.com
- gigabot Gigabot spider
- gimme60bot Gimme60 (gimme60.com)
- gimmeusabot Gimme60 (gimme60.com)
- go http package Go http library
- google page speed insights Google Page Speed Insights
- google Web Preview Google Instant Previews crawler
- google-structured-data-testing-tool Google-StructuredDataTestingTool
- google-structureddatatestingtool Google-StructuredDataTestingTool
- googlebot Google Bot
- googlestackdrivermonitoring-uptimechecks GoogleStackdriverMonitoring-UptimeChecks
- grapeshotcrawler GrapeshotCrawler
- gravitybot Gravity Bot
- hatena::bookmark Hatena::Bookmark
- heritrix heritrix
- htmlparser HTMLParser
- http_request2 HTTP_Request2
- httpclient HTTPClient
- https://developers.google.com/+/web/snippet Google+ Snippet Fetcher
- hubspot HubSpot
- ia_archiver Internet Archive (WayBackMachine)
- icoreservice iCoreService
- idmarch idmarch.org/bot.html
- inagist URL resolver
- insieve Insieve Bot
- insitesbot Insitesbot
- instapaper Instapaper
- istellabot IstellaBot
- jack jack
- jakarta commons Jakarta Commons HttpClient
- java Generic Java http library
- jetslide Jetslide
- js-kit URL resolver
- kemvibot Kemvi
- kimengi Kimengi Bot
- knows.is knows.is
- kojitsubot Kojitsubot
- komodiabot KomodiaBot
- kraken kraken
- laconica Laconica
- libwww-perl Perl client-server library
- lijit crawler Lijit
- linkdexbot Linkdex Bot
- linkedinbot LinkedIn
- linkscrawler LinksCrawler
- linode Linode Longview
- lipperhey Lipperhey
- livelapbot Livelapbot
- loadtimebot Load Time Bot
- longurl URL expander service
- ltx71 ltx71.com
- lumibot Lumibot
- lwp-trivial Another Perl library
- magpie-crawler magpie-crawler
- mail.ru_bot Mail.ru Bot
- meanpathbot meanpath
- mediapartners-google Google Adsense bot
- megaindex.ru MegaIndex
- memorybot mignify.com/bot.html
- metauri MetaURI
- mfe_expand Mcafee spider
- mir web crawler MIR web crawler
- mj12bot Majestic-12 spider
- mojeekbot Mojeek UK search crawler
- mrchrome MrChrome
- ms search 6.0 robot MS Search 6.0 Robot
- msnbot-media Microsoft media bot
- msnbot Microsoft bot
- nerdybot NerdyBot
- netcraft Netcraft
- netstate netEstate NE Crawler
- netvibes Personalized dashboard bot
- netzcheckbot netzcheck
- newrelicmonitor NewRelic monitor
- newrelicpinger NewRelicPinger
- newsme newsme
- niki-bot niki-bot
- ning NING - Yet Another Twitter Swarmer
- nutch Apache search spider
- openhosebot OpenHoseBot
- orangebot OrangeBot
- pagesinventory pagesinventory.com
- panopta Monitoring service
- paperlibot PaperLi
- peerindex peerindex
- percolatecrawler PercolateCrawler
- perfectmarketkwtbot PerfectMarket
- phantomjs PhantomJS
- pingdom Pingdom monitoring
- pinterest Pinterest
- plukkie botje.com/plukkie.htm
- privacyawarebot PrivacyAwareBot
- proximic Proximic Spider
- psbot-page Picsearch
- publiclibraryarchive.org publiclibraryarchive.org
- pycurl Python http library
- python-httplib2 Python-httplib2
- python-requests Python http library
- python-urllib Python http library
- queryseeker QuerySeekerSpider
- quicklook QuickLook
- re-animator Domain Re-Animator Bot
- readability Readability
- rebelmouse RebelMouse
- redditbot Reddit Bot
- relateiq RelateIQ
- riddler Riddler Bot
- rogerbot SeoMoz spider
- rssmicro RSS/Atom Feed Robot (rssmicro.com)
- ruby Ruby
- scrapy Scrapy
- screaming frog seo spider Screaming Frog SEO Spider
- searchmetricsbot SearchmetricsBot
- semrushbot SEO analysis bot
- seokicks SEOKicks
- seznambot SeznamBot
- shopwiki ShopWiki
- shortlinktranslate Link shortener
- showyoubot Showyou iOS app spider
- siege Joe Dog Siege
- sistrix SISTRIX
- siteuptime Site monitoring services
- slack Slackbot-LinkExpanding
- slackbot Slack Bot
- slurp Yahoo spider
- smtbot SimilarTech
- socialrank SocialRankIOBot
- sogou Chinese search engine
- spbot OpenLinkProfiler
- spider generic web spider
- spinn3r Spinn3r aggregator
- sputnikbot SputnikBot
- squider Squider
- statuscake StatusCake
- stripe Stripe
- test certificate info C http library?
- tineye TinEye Bot
- traackr Traackr Bot
- trendictionbot Trendiction Search
- turnitinbot TurnitinBot
- tweetedtimes The Tweeted Times
- tweetmemebot TweetMeMe Crawler
- twikle Social web search bot
- twitjobsearch TwitJobSearch
- twitmunin Twitmunin
- twitterbot Twitter URL expander
- twurly Twurly
- typhoeus Typhoeus
- umbot uberMetrics
- unwindfetch Gnip
- uptimerobot Uptime Robot
- vagabondo Vagabondo
- vb project Visual Basic
- vigil Vigil
- vkshare VKontake Sharer
- voilabot VoilaBot
- vrcrawler Venture Radar
- wasalive-bot Wasalive Bots
- watchsumo WatchSumo
- wbsearchbot Ware Bay Best Buys
- webscout Webscout
- wesee WeSEE
- wget wget unix CLI http client
- wordpress WordPress spider
- wormly WormlyBot
- wotbox Wotbox
- xenu link sleuth Xenu Link Sleuth
- xing-contenttabreceiver Xing bot
- xovibot XoviBot
- yacybot YaCy
- yahoo-ad-monitoring Yahoo Ad monitoring
- yandex Yandex
- yeti Naver Corp
- yourls YOURLS
- zelist.ro feed parser
- zibb ZIBB spider
- zitebot Zite
- zyborg Zyborg
List of Cloud Providers also Identified as Bots
Many bots do not identify themselves as such, but we track the internet service providers and identify traffic from major cloud providers as likely to be bots as well.
- Google Cloud
- Microsoft Corporation
- OVH SAS
- DigitalOcean
- Huawei Clouds
- Google-private-cloud
- Amazon.com
- Google Proxy
- Omonia d.o.o.
- ColoCrossing
