Diffbot
Diffbot •
Since 2011
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is Diffbot?
Diffbot is an AI-powered web scraping and data extraction service that uses machine learning to understand and structure web content. Unlike traditional crawlers that rely on specific selectors or patterns, Diffbot's AI can understand pages like humans do, automatically identifying articles, products, discussions, and other content types. The service builds a massive knowledge graph from crawled data, providing structured data APIs for various use cases. Diffbot is used by businesses for market intelligence, news monitoring, and data enrichment.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Diffbot/0.1; +http://www.diffbot.com/our-apis/crawler/)
How to Control Diffbot
Block Completely
To prevent Diffbot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Diffbot
User-agent: Diffbot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Diffbot
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: Diffbot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Diffbot
Verification Method:
Check Diffbot's documentation
Check Diffbot's documentation
Learn more in the official documentation.
⚠️ AI Training Notice
This bot may collect and use your website content for AI model training. Consider whether you want your content used for this purpose before allowing access.
This bot may collect and use your website content for AI model training. Consider whether you want your content used for this purpose before allowing access.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Diffbot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Diffbot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible; Diffbot/0\.1; \+http\://www\.diffbot\.com/our\-apis/crawler/\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/Diffbot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Diffbot.*Diffbot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Diffbot
function detect_diffbot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Diffbot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Diffbot 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Diffbot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_diffbot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Diffbot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class DiffbotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Diffbot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Diffbot
function detectDiffbot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Diffbot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Diffbot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Diffbot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectDiffbot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Diffbot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Diffbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Diffbot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Diffbot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Diffbot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Diffbot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_diffbot {
default 0;
~*Diffbot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_diffbot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_diffbot) {
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_diffbot) {
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 | Limit Access | Protect pricing and inventory data from AI training |
| Blog/News | Consider Blocking | Your content may be used for AI training without compensation |
| 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: Diffbot
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: Diffbot
# Blocking AI training bot
Disallow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Diffbot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Diffbot
Robots.txt Name
Diffbot
Category
ai, other
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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