AddThis is a bot in the SEO crawlers category, operated by AddThis.
The AddThis bot crawls websites to gather and update content for its website marketing tools. These tools include features like social sharing buttons and content recommendation widgets.
SEO crawlers map links, keywords and technical issues for SEO tools and backlink databases. They help the tool's customers, often your competitors, rather than you. Rate limit or block the ones you do not use.
AddThis identifies itself with this user agent string:
AddThis.com (http://support.addthis.com/)Anyone can copy a user agent string. Transfon Security also checks where each request comes from, so a request that claims to be a known crawler but comes from the wrong network is treated as a fake, not as the real crawler.
We have not confirmed whether AddThis follows robots.txt. Add a rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.
User-agent: AddThis Disallow: /
User-agent: AddThis Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /search
User-agent: AddThis Allow: /blog/ Disallow: /
User-agent: AddThis Allow: / User-agent: * Disallow: /
User-agent: AddThis group, AddThis ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.AddThis from AddThis's user agent; check AddThis's own documentation if it publishes a different robots.txt name.Treat robots.txt as a statement of your policy, and enforce it where requests arrive.
AddThis works for an SEO tool's customers, often your competitors. It adds server load without readers, so rate limit or block it unless you use the tool.
Transfon Security for publishersSEO crawlers map landing pages and links for competitor research. Keep AddThis's visits out of campaign data.
Transfon Security for advertisersAddThis can map your catalogue, prices and site structure for competitors. Block it unless you use the tool yourself.
Transfon Security for e-commerceAllow AddThis only if your team uses the tool; otherwise rate limit it on docs and marketing pages.
Transfon Security for SaaS and APIsrobots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows AddThis by name in the Top Bots report, so you can see how often it visits and which pages it reads. Block or allow it with a User Agent rule, or slow it down with a rate limit decision rule.
Transfon Security
AddThis is a bot in the SEO crawlers category, operated by AddThis. The AddThis bot crawls websites to gather and update content for its website marketing tools. These tools include features like social sharing buttons and content recommendation widgets.
We have not confirmed whether AddThis follows robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped, and block it by user agent if it did not.
Add "User-agent: AddThis" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "AddThis" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.
No. robots.txt is voluntary, so AddThis may not follow it, and anyone can send AddThis's user agent, so a fake AddThis ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.
SEO crawlers map links, keywords and technical issues for SEO tools and backlink databases. They help the tool's customers, often your competitors, rather than you. Rate limit or block the ones you do not use.
Transfon Security identifies every bot in this directory in your traffic reports, flags fake search crawlers, and lets you allow, block or rate limit each bot.
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