What is Pricey?

Pricey is an AI agent in the content aggregators category, operated by Wilico.

Bot name
Pricey
Operator
Wilico
Type
AI agent
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
Pricey
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
Yes

About Pricey

Pricey collects and compares product prices, showing trends and helping users find the best time to buy deals online.

Aggregators collect articles and links from many sites to build news feeds, read later apps and discovery services. Some send referral traffic, others republish your content. Check what each one does with your pages before allowing it.

Pricey user agent

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 Pricey in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether Pricey 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 Pricey from the whole site

User-agent: Pricey
Disallow: /

Block Pricey from some folders

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

Allow Pricey only on some folders

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

Allow Pricey and block other crawlers

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

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

Who should care about Pricey

Publishers

Pricey fetches pages when your links are shared or syndicated. Keep it allowed so previews and feeds work, but leave it out of page views and ad requests.

Transfon Security for publishers

Media buyers and advertisers

When ads or posts are shared, Pricey fetches the landing page. Those hits are not clicks, so keep them out of campaign reports.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

Product links shared in chats and feeds are fetched by Pricey. Keep it allowed so previews show the right image and price.

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

Allow Pricey on public pages so shared links preview well, and keep it off the app.

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block Pricey with Transfon Security

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

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Pricey?

Pricey is an AI agent in the content aggregators category, operated by Wilico. Pricey collects and compares product prices, showing trends and helping users find the best time to buy deals online.

Does Pricey respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether Pricey 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 Pricey?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block Pricey?

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

Should I block Pricey?

Aggregators collect articles and links from many sites to build news feeds, read later apps and discovery services. Some send referral traffic, others republish your content. Check what each one does with your pages before allowing it.

Related bots

All content aggregators · 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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