What is FactsetSpyderbot?

FactsetSpyderbot is a bot in the content aggregators category, operated by Factset.

Bot name
FactsetSpyderbot
Operator
Factset
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
factset_spyderbot
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About FactsetSpyderbot

Factset uses a Python Selenium Crawler for web scraping to deliver reliable, current financial data.

Aggregators collect articles and links from many sites to build news feeds, read later apps and discovery services. Some send referral traffic, others republish your content. Check what each one does with your pages before allowing it.

FactsetSpyderbot user agent

FactsetSpyderbot identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Mozilla/5.0(windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebkit/537.36(KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/90.0.4430.72 Safari/537.36 factset_spyderbot

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 FactsetSpyderbot in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether FactsetSpyderbot 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 FactsetSpyderbot from the whole site

User-agent: factset_spyderbot
Disallow: /

Block FactsetSpyderbot from some folders

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

Allow FactsetSpyderbot only on some folders

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

Allow FactsetSpyderbot and block other crawlers

User-agent: factset_spyderbot
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: factset_spyderbot group, FactsetSpyderbot ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take factset_spyderbot from FactsetSpyderbot's user agent; check Factset'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. FactsetSpyderbot may not follow the rule. robots.txt is a request that nothing enforces, and we have not confirmed that FactsetSpyderbot 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 FactsetSpyderbot's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Factset's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real FactsetSpyderbot from a fake one.

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

Who should care about FactsetSpyderbot

Publishers

FactsetSpyderbot fetches pages when your links are shared or syndicated. Keep it allowed so previews and feeds work, but leave it out of page views and ad requests.

Transfon Security for publishers

Media buyers and advertisers

When ads or posts are shared, FactsetSpyderbot fetches the landing page. Those hits are not clicks, so keep them out of campaign reports.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

Product links shared in chats and feeds are fetched by FactsetSpyderbot. Keep it allowed so previews show the right image and price.

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

Allow FactsetSpyderbot on public pages so shared links preview well, and keep it off the app.

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block FactsetSpyderbot with Transfon Security

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

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

Frequently asked questions

What is FactsetSpyderbot?

FactsetSpyderbot is a bot in the content aggregators category, operated by Factset. Factset uses a Python Selenium Crawler for web scraping to deliver reliable, current financial data.

Does FactsetSpyderbot respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether FactsetSpyderbot 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 FactsetSpyderbot?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block FactsetSpyderbot?

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

Should I block FactsetSpyderbot?

Aggregators collect articles and links from many sites to build news feeds, read later apps and discovery services. Some send referral traffic, others republish your content. Check what each one does with your pages before allowing it.

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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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