What is Cludo?

Cludo is a bot in the monitoring and analytics bots category, operated by Cludo.

Bot name
Cludo
Operator
Cludo
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Yes
robots.txt user agent
Cludo
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About Cludo

Cludobot crawls websites to facilitate and provide search and analytics solutions for its customers.

Monitoring bots check uptime, performance and page changes on behalf of a site owner or a third party. Allow the services you run yourself and exclude them from analytics so they do not inflate page views.

Cludo user agent

Cludo identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; cludo.com bot) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/61.0.3133.0 Safari/537.36

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 Cludo in robots.txt

Cludo follows robots.txt, so these rules stop it crawling the paths you choose. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.

Block Cludo from the whole site

User-agent: Cludo
Disallow: /

Block Cludo from some folders

User-agent: Cludo
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /search

Allow Cludo only on some folders

User-agent: Cludo
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /

Allow Cludo and block other crawlers

User-agent: Cludo
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: Cludo group, Cludo ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take Cludo from Cludo's user agent; check Cludo'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. Cludo may not follow the rule. Cludo says it follows robots.txt, but nothing enforces that. Changes can take a day to apply, the operator can change its policy, and other crawlers from Cludo use different names and rules.
  2. The user agent could be fake. robots.txt matches the name a request claims. Anyone can send Cludo's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Cludo's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real Cludo from a fake one.

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

Who should care about Cludo

Publishers

Allow Cludo 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

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

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

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

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

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

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block Cludo with Transfon Security

robots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows Cludo 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 Cludo on your site

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Cludo?

Cludo is a bot in the monitoring and analytics bots category, operated by Cludo. Cludobot crawls websites to facilitate and provide search and analytics solutions for its customers.

Does Cludo respect robots.txt?

Yes. Cludo follows robots.txt, so a Disallow rule for the Cludo user agent stops it from crawling the paths you list.

How do I block Cludo?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block Cludo?

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

Should I block Cludo?

Monitoring bots check uptime, performance and page changes on behalf of a site owner or a third party. Allow the services you run yourself and exclude them from analytics so they do not inflate page views.

Related bots

All monitoring and analytics bots · Full bot directory

See Which Bots Visit Your Site

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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