What is GhostInspector?

GhostInspector is a bot in the monitoring and analytics bots category, operated by Ghost Inspector.

Bot name
GhostInspector
Operator
Ghost Inspector
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
Ghost
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About GhostInspector

Ghost Inspector is an automated browser testing framework.

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.

GhostInspector user agent

GhostInspector identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/107.0 Safari/537.36 Ghost Inspector (63c85ddbde52d6697f57c623)

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 GhostInspector in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether GhostInspector 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 GhostInspector from the whole site

User-agent: Ghost
Disallow: /

Block GhostInspector from some folders

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

Allow GhostInspector only on some folders

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

Allow GhostInspector and block other crawlers

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

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

Who should care about GhostInspector

Publishers

Allow GhostInspector 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

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

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

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

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

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

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block GhostInspector with Transfon Security

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

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

Frequently asked questions

What is GhostInspector?

GhostInspector is a bot in the monitoring and analytics bots category, operated by Ghost Inspector. Ghost Inspector is an automated browser testing framework.

Does GhostInspector respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether GhostInspector 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 GhostInspector?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block GhostInspector?

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

Should I block GhostInspector?

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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