What is NeticleCrawler?

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

Bot name
NeticleCrawler
Operator
Neticle
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
Neticle
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About NeticleCrawler

NeticleCrawler collects news and web pages for Neticle, a media monitoring and text analytics service.

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.

NeticleCrawler user agent

NeticleCrawler identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Neticle Crawler v1.0 ( https://neticle.com/bot/en/ )

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 NeticleCrawler in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether NeticleCrawler 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 NeticleCrawler from the whole site

User-agent: Neticle
Disallow: /

Block NeticleCrawler from some folders

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

Allow NeticleCrawler only on some folders

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

Allow NeticleCrawler and block other crawlers

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

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

Who should care about NeticleCrawler

Publishers

Allow NeticleCrawler 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

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

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

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

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

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

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block NeticleCrawler with Transfon Security

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

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

Frequently asked questions

What is NeticleCrawler?

NeticleCrawler is a bot in the monitoring and analytics bots category, operated by Neticle. NeticleCrawler collects news and web pages for Neticle, a media monitoring and text analytics service.

Does NeticleCrawler respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether NeticleCrawler 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 NeticleCrawler?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block NeticleCrawler?

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

Should I block NeticleCrawler?

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.

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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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