Pingdom
Pingdom •
Since 2005
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Official Docs
What is Pingdom?
Pingdom, now part of SolarWinds, is a comprehensive website monitoring service that checks uptime, performance, and user interactions. The bot performs synthetic monitoring from dozens of global locations, providing detailed insights into website availability and performance. Pingdom's Real User Monitoring (RUM) and synthetic monitoring help identify issues before they impact users. The service is popular among enterprises and businesses requiring detailed performance metrics and SLA monitoring. Pingdom's bot can perform complex transaction monitoring, simulating user journeys through websites.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Pingdom.com_bot_version_1.4_(http://www.pingdom.com/))
How to Control Pingdom
Block Completely
To prevent Pingdom from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Pingdom
User-agent: Pingdom.com_bot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Pingdom.com_bot
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: Pingdom.com_bot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Pingdom
Verification Method:
Verify from Pingdom's probe server IPs
Verify from Pingdom's probe server IPs
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Pingdom in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Pingdom/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible; Pingdom\.com_bot_version_1\.4_\(http\://www\.pingdom\.com/\)\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/Pingdom[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Pingdom.*Pingdom/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Pingdom
function detect_pingdom() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Pingdom/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Pingdom 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Pingdom
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_pingdom():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Pingdom'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class PingdomMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Pingdom
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Pingdom
function detectPingdom(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Pingdom/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Pingdom detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Pingdom';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectPingdom);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Pingdom
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Pingdom [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Pingdom [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Pingdom" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Pingdom/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Pingdom
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_pingdom {
default 0;
~*Pingdom 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_pingdom) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_pingdom) {
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_pingdom) {
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: Pingdom.com_bot
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: Pingdom.com_bot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Pingdom.com_bot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Pingdom
Robots.txt Name
Pingdom.com_bot
Category
monitoring
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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