What is NewsNow?

NewsNow is a bot in the search engine crawlers category, operated by NewsNowUK.

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

About NewsNow

The NewsNow bot is the web crawler for the news aggregator service NewsNow.

Search engine crawlers index your pages so they can appear in search results. Keep the genuine ones allowed and verify them, because fake search crawlers are one of the most common disguises for scrapers.

NewsNow user agent

NewsNow identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT) NewsNow/1.0

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 NewsNow in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether NewsNow 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 NewsNow from the whole site

User-agent: NewsNow
Disallow: /

Block NewsNow from some folders

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

Allow NewsNow only on some folders

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

Allow NewsNow and block other crawlers

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

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

Who should care about NewsNow

Publishers

NewsNow brings search traffic, so keep the real one allowed. Fake NewsNow requests are a common cover for scrapers, so verify it by network rather than by name.

Transfon Security for publishers

Media buyers and advertisers

Search crawlers fetch landing pages to check them. Keep NewsNow allowed, but out of campaign and conversion data.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

NewsNow indexes products for search results. Allow it, and block impersonators that use its name to scrape prices.

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

Allow NewsNow on marketing and docs pages, and keep it off signed-in app pages it cannot use.

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block NewsNow with Transfon Security

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

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

Frequently asked questions

What is NewsNow?

NewsNow is a bot in the search engine crawlers category, operated by NewsNowUK. The NewsNow bot is the web crawler for the news aggregator service NewsNow.

Does NewsNow respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether NewsNow 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 NewsNow?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block NewsNow?

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

Should I block NewsNow?

Search engine crawlers index your pages so they can appear in search results. Keep the genuine ones allowed and verify them, because fake search crawlers are one of the most common disguises for scrapers.

Related bots

All search engine crawlers · 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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