What is BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler?

BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler is a bot in the academic research crawlers category, operated by Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Bot name
BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler
Operator
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
bnf.fr_bot
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler

Bibliothèque nationale de France's mission is to collect, catalog, preserve, enrich and communicate the national documentary heritage.

Research crawlers collect pages for university and non-profit studies of the web. Most are low volume and respect robots.txt. Block them there if you prefer not to take part.

BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler user agent

BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bnf.fr_bot; +https://www.bnf.fr/fr/capture-de-votre-site-web-par-le-robot-de-la-bnf)

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.

How to block BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler 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.

Block BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler from the whole site

User-agent: bnf.fr_bot
Disallow: /

Block BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler from some folders

User-agent: bnf.fr_bot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /search

Allow BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler only on some folders

User-agent: bnf.fr_bot
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /

Allow BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler and block other crawlers

User-agent: bnf.fr_bot
Allow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Things to know

  • Each host needs its own file. Rules on www.example.com do not apply to shop.example.com.
  • A crawler obeys only the most specific group that names it. Once you add a User-agent: bnf.fr_bot group, BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take bnf.fr_bot from BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler's user agent; check Bibliothèque nationale de France's own documentation if it publishes a different robots.txt name.
  • Crawlers cache robots.txt, so changes can take up to a day to apply. Disallow stops crawling but does not remove pages already collected or indexed.

Limits of robots.txt

  1. BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler may not follow the rule. robots.txt is a request that nothing enforces, and we have not confirmed that BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler follows it. Check your logs after adding a rule.
  2. The user agent could be fake. robots.txt matches the name a request claims. Anyone can send BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Bibliothèque nationale de France's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler from a fake one.

Treat robots.txt as a statement of your policy, and enforce it where requests arrive.

Who should care about BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler

Publishers

Allow BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler if it is a service you use, and keep its visits out of page views and ad requests either way.

Transfon Security for publishers

Media buyers and advertisers

BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler is not a person. Exclude it from campaign and conversion data so reports reflect real visitors.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

Allow BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler only if it works for your store, and keep it away from cart and checkout.

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

If BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler is a service you use, allow it on the endpoints it needs and block it elsewhere.

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler with Transfon Security

robots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler 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

Control BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler on your site

  • See every BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler visit and the pages it reads
  • Spot bots that fake trusted crawler names
  • Block, allow or rate limit BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler with one rule
  • Works with or without robots.txt support

Frequently asked questions

What is BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler?

BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler is a bot in the academic research crawlers category, operated by Bibliothèque nationale de France. Bibliothèque nationale de France's mission is to collect, catalog, preserve, enrich and communicate the national documentary heritage.

Does BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler 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.

How do I block BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler?

Add "User-agent: bnf.fr_bot" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "bnf.fr_bot" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.

Is robots.txt enough to block BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler?

No. robots.txt is voluntary, so BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler may not follow it, and anyone can send BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler's user agent, so a fake BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.

Should I block BibliothequeNacionalDeFranceCrawler?

Research crawlers collect pages for university and non-profit studies of the web. Most are low volume and respect robots.txt. Block them there if you prefer not to take part.

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