What is PrintFriendly?

PrintFriendly is a bot in the webhook senders category, operated by PrintFriendly.com.

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

About PrintFriendly

Extract Content to Show Print Friendly version. Publishers typically embed our button - https://www.printfriendly.com/button - so that their visitors can view a Print Friendly Page and/or create a PDF

Webhook senders call your endpoints to deliver events from payment, messaging and SaaS platforms. Blocking them breaks integrations. Allow them on the webhook paths they need and nowhere else.

PrintFriendly user agent

PrintFriendly identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • PrintFriendly.com

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 PrintFriendly in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether PrintFriendly 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 PrintFriendly from the whole site

User-agent: PrintFriendly
Disallow: /

Block PrintFriendly from some folders

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

Allow PrintFriendly only on some folders

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

Allow PrintFriendly and block other crawlers

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

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

Who should care about PrintFriendly

Publishers

Allow PrintFriendly 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

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

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

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

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

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

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block PrintFriendly with Transfon Security

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

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

Frequently asked questions

What is PrintFriendly?

PrintFriendly is a bot in the webhook senders category, operated by PrintFriendly.com. Extract Content to Show Print Friendly version. Publishers typically embed our button - https://www.printfriendly.com/button - so that their visitors can view a Print Friendly Page and/or create a PDF

Does PrintFriendly respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether PrintFriendly 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 PrintFriendly?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block PrintFriendly?

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

Should I block PrintFriendly?

Webhook senders call your endpoints to deliver events from payment, messaging and SaaS platforms. Blocking them breaks integrations. Allow them on the webhook paths they need and nowhere else.

Related bots

All webhook senders · 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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