ev-crawler
Headline •
Web Crawler
What is ev-crawler?
The URL in this observed user-agent leads to Headline's own web-crawler page. Headline says its crawler occasionally reads public company information, including home pages, job listings, team pages and location references, to discover interesting businesses. That page does not publish this exact user-agent, a robots.txt policy or a source-IP verification method, so the claimed association should be treated cautiously.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; ev-crawler/1.0; +https://headline.com/web-crawler)
How to Control ev-crawler
Block Completely
To prevent ev-crawler from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block ev-crawler
User-agent: ev-crawler
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: ev-crawler
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: ev-crawler
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify ev-crawler
Verification Method:
Headline's page describes its crawler but does not publish this exact user-agent or an IP verification method. Confirm the source with Headline before treating the claim as genuine.
Headline's page describes its crawler but does not publish this exact user-agent or an IP verification method. Confirm the source with Headline before treating the claim as genuine.
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect ev-crawler in your application:
Basic Pattern
/ev\-crawler/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla\/5\.0 \(compatible; ev\-crawler\/1\.0; \+https\:\/\/headline\.com\/web\-crawler\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/ev\-crawler[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Headline.*ev\-crawler/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for ev-crawler
function detect_ev_crawler() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/ev\-crawler/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('ev-crawler 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for ev-crawler
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_ev_crawler():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'ev\-crawler'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class ev_crawlerMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for ev-crawler
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect ev-crawler
function detect_ev_crawler(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /ev\-crawler/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('ev-crawler detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'ev-crawler';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_ev_crawler);
# Apache .htaccess rules for ev-crawler
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ev\-crawler [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ev\-crawler [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "ev\-crawler" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /ev\-crawler/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for ev-crawler
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_ev_crawler {
default 0;
~*ev\-crawler 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_ev_crawler) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_ev_crawler) {
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_ev_crawler) {
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: ev-crawler
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: ev-crawler
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: ev-crawler
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
ev-crawler
Robots.txt Name
ev-crawler
Category
other
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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