What is LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving?

LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving is a bot in the academic research crawlers category, operated by United States Library of Congress.

Bot name
LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving
Operator
United States Library of Congress
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving

The Library of Congress Web Archive manages, preserves, and provides access to archived web content selected by subject experts from across the Library, so that it will be available for researchers today and in the future. More information on the programme here: https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/about-this-program/ And information about crawling policy here: https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/for-site-owners/

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.

LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving user agent

LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.97 Safari/537.36 (+https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/for-site-owners/)

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 LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving 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 LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving from the whole site

User-agent: LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving
Disallow: /

Block LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving from some folders

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

Allow LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving only on some folders

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

Allow LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving and block other crawlers

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

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

Who should care about LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving

Publishers

Allow LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving 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

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

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

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

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

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

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving with Transfon Security

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

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

Frequently asked questions

What is LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving?

LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving is a bot in the academic research crawlers category, operated by United States Library of Congress. The Library of Congress Web Archive manages, preserves, and provides access to archived web content selected by subject experts from across the Library, so that it will be available for researchers today and in the future. More information on the programme here: https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/about-this-program/ And information about crawling policy here: https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/for-site-owners/

Does LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving 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 LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving?

Add "User-agent: LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/for-site-owners/" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.

Is robots.txt enough to block LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving?

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

Should I block LibraryOfCongressWebArchiving?

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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All academic research crawlers · Full bot directory

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