OnCrawl
OnCrawl •
Since 2014
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Official Docs
What is OnCrawl?
OnCrawl is a technical SEO platform that combines website crawling with log file analysis to provide comprehensive SEO insights. The platform excels at data SEO, offering advanced data analysis capabilities including custom extractions, data cross-analysis, and predictive analytics. OnCrawl's strength lies in its ability to correlate crawl data with log files, showing not just potential issues but actual search engine behavior. This makes it particularly valuable for large websites and e-commerce platforms where understanding search engine crawl behavior is crucial for optimization.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; OnCrawl/1.0; +https://www.oncrawl.com/)
How to Control OnCrawl
Block Completely
To prevent OnCrawl from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block OnCrawl
User-agent: OnCrawl
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: OnCrawl
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: OnCrawl
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify OnCrawl
Verification Method:
OnCrawl user agent verification
OnCrawl user agent verification
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect OnCrawl in your application:
Basic Pattern
/OnCrawl/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible; OnCrawl/1\.0; \+https\://www\.oncrawl\.com/\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/OnCrawl[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*OnCrawl.*OnCrawl/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for OnCrawl
function detect_oncrawl() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/OnCrawl/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('OnCrawl 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for OnCrawl
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_oncrawl():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'OnCrawl'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class OnCrawlMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for OnCrawl
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect OnCrawl
function detectOnCrawl(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /OnCrawl/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('OnCrawl detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'OnCrawl';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectOnCrawl);
# Apache .htaccess rules for OnCrawl
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} OnCrawl [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} OnCrawl [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "OnCrawl" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /OnCrawl/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for OnCrawl
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_oncrawl {
default 0;
~*OnCrawl 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_oncrawl) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_oncrawl) {
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_oncrawl) {
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: OnCrawl
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: OnCrawl
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: OnCrawl
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
OnCrawl
Robots.txt Name
OnCrawl
Category
seo
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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