Netcraft is a bot in the security scanners category, operated by Netcraft.
The Netcraft Survey Agent is a bot that analyzes web server technology stacks for their Web Server Survey.
Security scanners probe sites for vulnerabilities, certificates and exposed services. Some are research projects, some are vendors you hired. Allow your own scanners and block the rest at the WAF.
Sample user agent strings sent by Netcraft:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NetcraftSurveyAgent/1.0; [email protected])Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Netcraft Web Server Survey)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.
We have not confirmed whether Netcraft 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.
User-agent: Netcraft Disallow: /
User-agent: Netcraft Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /search
User-agent: Netcraft Allow: /blog/ Disallow: /
User-agent: Netcraft Allow: / User-agent: * Disallow: /
User-agent: Netcraft group, Netcraft ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.Netcraft from Netcraft's user agent; check Netcraft's own documentation if it publishes a different robots.txt name.Treat robots.txt as a statement of your policy, and enforce it where requests arrive.
Allow Netcraft if it is a service you use, and keep its visits out of page views and ad requests either way.
Transfon Security for publishersNetcraft is not a person. Exclude it from campaign and conversion data so reports reflect real visitors.
Transfon Security for advertisersAllow Netcraft only if it works for your store, and keep it away from cart and checkout.
Transfon Security for e-commerceIf Netcraft is a service you use, allow it on the endpoints it needs and block it elsewhere.
Transfon Security for SaaS and APIsrobots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows Netcraft 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
Netcraft is a bot in the security scanners category, operated by Netcraft. The Netcraft Survey Agent is a bot that analyzes web server technology stacks for their Web Server Survey.
We have not confirmed whether Netcraft 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.
Add "User-agent: Netcraft" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "Netcraft" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.
No. robots.txt is voluntary, so Netcraft may not follow it, and anyone can send Netcraft's user agent, so a fake Netcraft ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.
Security scanners probe sites for vulnerabilities, certificates and exposed services. Some are research projects, some are vendors you hired. Allow your own scanners and block the rest at the WAF.
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.
Privacy, security, monetization, and performance insights. A few emails a month, no spam.