BLEXBot
WebMeUp •
Since 2013
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is BLEXBot?
BLEXBot is the crawler for WebMeUp's backlink checker tool. It focuses on discovering and analyzing backlinks to help SEO professionals and website owners understand their link profiles. The bot contributes to WebMeUp's backlink database, which offers both free and paid tiers of backlink analysis. BLEXBot operates with respect for server resources and robots.txt directives. While not as large as major SEO platforms, WebMeUp provides accessible backlink data that's particularly useful for smaller websites and SEO practitioners.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; BLEXBot/1.0; +http://webmeup.com/crawler/)
How to Control BLEXBot
Block Completely
To prevent BLEXBot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block BLEXBot
User-agent: BLEXBot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: BLEXBot
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /public/
Set Crawl Delay
To slow down the crawl rate (note: not all bots respect this directive):
User-agent: BLEXBot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify BLEXBot
Verification Method:
Check user agent and behavior
Check user agent and behavior
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect BLEXBot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/BLEXBot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible; BLEXBot/1\.0; \+http\://webmeup\.com/crawler/\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/BLEXBot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*WebMeUp.*BLEXBot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for BLEXBot
function detect_blexbot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/BLEXBot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('BLEXBot detected from IP: ' . $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
// Set cache headers
header('Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600');
header('X-Robots-Tag: noarchive');
// Optional: Serve cached version
if (file_exists('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html')) {
readfile('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for BLEXBot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_blexbot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'BLEXBot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class BLEXBotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for BLEXBot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect BLEXBot
function detectBLEXBot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /BLEXBot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('BLEXBot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'BLEXBot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectBLEXBot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for BLEXBot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} BLEXBot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} BLEXBot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "BLEXBot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /BLEXBot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for BLEXBot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_blexbot {
default 0;
~*BLEXBot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_blexbot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_blexbot) {
root /var/www/cached;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html @backend;
}
try_files $uri @backend;
}
# Add headers for bot requests
location @backend {
if ($is_blexbot) {
add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600";
add_header X-Robots-Tag "noarchive";
}
proxy_pass http://backend;
}
}
Should You Block This Bot?
Recommendations based on your website type:
| Site Type | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Optional | Evaluate based on bandwidth usage vs. benefits |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Selective | Allow for public docs, block for internal docs |
| Corporate Site | Limit | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: BLEXBot
Crawl-delay: 5
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /*?sort=
Disallow: /*?filter=
Disallow: /*&page=
Allow: /products/
Allow: /categories/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Publishing/Blog Configuration
User-agent: BLEXBot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: BLEXBot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
BLEXBot
Robots.txt Name
BLEXBot
Category
seo
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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