Training crawlers
FriendlyCrawler is a bot operated by Unknown that collects pages used to train AI models. Unclear who the operator is; but data is used for training/machine learning. It is documented as honouring robots.txt, but no IP range list or reverse-DNS convention is published, so a request carrying this user agent cannot be proven genuine.
Request says
"FriendlyCrawler"
Checked against
Nothing published
Live check
No operator check exists for FriendlyCrawler. This still shows what the address really is.
Reference
| User agent | FriendlyCrawlerToken only: match on the substring. |
|---|---|
| Operator | Unknown |
| Purpose | We are using the data from the crawler to build datasets for machine learning experiments. |
| Respects robots.txt | Honourssource |
| Verification method | Claim onlyNone published, user agent only No IP range file and no reverse-DNS convention have been published for this agent. The user-agent string is the only signal, and any client can send it, so treat a match as a claim rather than proof. |
| Crawl pattern | Not published |
| Robots.txt tokens | FriendlyCrawler |
| Operator documentation | None published |
Unclear who the operator is; but data is used for training/machine learning.
robots.txt
Paste one at the root of your domain. Rules are per token.
User-agent: FriendlyCrawler
Disallow: /User-agent: FriendlyCrawler
Allow: /User-agent: FriendlyCrawler
Allow: /
Disallow: /account/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /searchEdit the Disallow paths to match your own URLs.
Blocking FriendlyCrawler keeps your pages out of the next training run. It does not remove anything already collected, and it has no effect on how the site ranks in ordinary search.
Build a file for every crawlerFAQ
FriendlyCrawler is a bot operated by Unknown that collects pages used to train AI models. Unclear who the operator is; but data is used for training/machine learning. It is documented as honouring robots.txt, but no IP range list or reverse-DNS convention is published, so a request carrying this user agent cannot be proven genuine.
Yes. The operator documents that FriendlyCrawler reads robots.txt and follows Disallow rules for its own token. Rules take effect on the next fetch of the file, which can be hours or days after you publish them.
You cannot, at least not from the request itself. No IP range file and no reverse-DNS convention have been published for this agent. The user-agent string is the only signal, and any client can send it, so treat a match as a claim rather than proof. Compare the source IP against hosting and datacenter ranges instead, and rate limit anything that behaves like a crawler.
Add the FriendlyCrawler token to robots.txt with Disallow: /. If the crawler ignores robots.txt, match the user agent at your CDN or reverse proxy and return 403 there instead.
Blocking FriendlyCrawler keeps your pages out of the next training run. It does not remove anything already collected, and it has no effect on how the site ranks in ordinary search.