Scrapy
Scrapy •
Since 2008
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Official Docs
What is Scrapy?
Scrapy is a powerful and popular open-source web scraping framework for Python. Unlike simple HTTP libraries, Scrapy provides a complete framework for large-scale web scraping with features like concurrent requests, automatic retries, and middleware support. The framework is designed for professional data extraction and respects robots.txt by default. Scrapy powers many legitimate data collection operations including price monitoring, research projects, and business intelligence. Its professional approach to web scraping includes built-in support for ethical crawling practices.
User Agent String
Scrapy/2.11.0 (+https://scrapy.org)
How to Control Scrapy
Block Completely
To prevent Scrapy from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Scrapy
User-agent: Scrapy
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Scrapy
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: Scrapy
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Scrapy
Verification Method:
Scrapy version in user agent
Scrapy version in user agent
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Scrapy in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Scrapy/i
Strict Pattern
/^Scrapy/2\.11\.0 \(\+https\://scrapy\.org\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/Scrapy[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Scrapy.*Scrapy/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Scrapy
function detect_scrapy() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Scrapy/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Scrapy 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Scrapy
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_scrapy():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Scrapy'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class ScrapyMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Scrapy
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Scrapy
function detectScrapy(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Scrapy/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Scrapy detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Scrapy';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectScrapy);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Scrapy
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Scrapy [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Scrapy [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Scrapy" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Scrapy/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Scrapy
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_scrapy {
default 0;
~*Scrapy 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_scrapy) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_scrapy) {
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_scrapy) {
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: Scrapy
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: Scrapy
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Scrapy
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Scrapy
Robots.txt Name
Scrapy
Category
other
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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