Observer is a bot in the SEO crawlers category, operated by Obsrvr.
Crawler looking for broken links to help improve world wide web as a whole.
SEO crawlers map links, keywords and technical issues for SEO tools and backlink databases. They help the tool's customers, often your competitors, rather than you. Rate limit or block the ones you do not use.
Observer identifies itself with this user agent string:
Observer/1.0 (+https://obsrvr.net/about; [email protected])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.
Observer follows robots.txt, so these rules stop it crawling the paths you choose. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.
User-agent: Observer Disallow: /
User-agent: Observer Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /search
User-agent: Observer Allow: /blog/ Disallow: /
User-agent: Observer Allow: / User-agent: * Disallow: /
User-agent: Observer group, Observer ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.Observer from Observer's user agent; check Obsrvr'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.
Observer works for an SEO tool's customers, often your competitors. It adds server load without readers, so rate limit or block it unless you use the tool.
Transfon Security for publishersSEO crawlers map landing pages and links for competitor research. Keep Observer's visits out of campaign data.
Transfon Security for advertisersObserver can map your catalogue, prices and site structure for competitors. Block it unless you use the tool yourself.
Transfon Security for e-commerceAllow Observer only if your team uses the tool; otherwise rate limit it on docs and marketing pages.
Transfon Security for SaaS and APIsrobots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows Observer 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
Observer is a bot in the SEO crawlers category, operated by Obsrvr. Crawler looking for broken links to help improve world wide web as a whole.
Yes. Observer follows robots.txt, so a Disallow rule for the Observer user agent stops it from crawling the paths you list.
Add "User-agent: Observer" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "obsrvr.net" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.
No. robots.txt is voluntary, so Observer may not follow it, and anyone can send Observer's user agent, so a fake Observer ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.
SEO crawlers map links, keywords and technical issues for SEO tools and backlink databases. They help the tool's customers, often your competitors, rather than you. Rate limit or block the ones you do not use.
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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