SEBot-WA
SE Ranking •
Web Crawler
What is SEBot-WA?
SE Ranking names SEBot-WA as the default user-agent for its Website Audit crawler, which scans sites for technical and on-page issues. It is separate from SERankingBacklinksBot and SERankingPCFBot already in the directory. SE Ranking says this crawler follows robots.txt by default, but the project owner can change that setting. Users may also choose another header in audit settings, so SEBot-WA is the default identity rather than a guarantee for every SE Ranking audit.
User Agent String
SEBot-WA
How to Control SEBot-WA
Block Completely
To prevent SEBot-WA from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block SEBot-WA
User-agent: SEBot-WA
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: SEBot-WA
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: SEBot-WA
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify SEBot-WA
Verification Method:
Use forward-confirmed reverse DNS ending in sr-srv.net or SE Ranking's current published crawler-IP list. A header match alone is insufficient.
Use forward-confirmed reverse DNS ending in sr-srv.net or SE Ranking's current published crawler-IP list. A header match alone is insufficient.
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect SEBot-WA in your application:
Basic Pattern
/SEBot\-WA/i
Strict Pattern
/^SEBot\-WA$/
Flexible Pattern
/SEBot\-WA[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*SE Ranking.*SEBot\-WA/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for SEBot-WA
function detect_sebot_wa() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/SEBot\-WA/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('SEBot-WA 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for SEBot-WA
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_sebot_wa():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'SEBot\-WA'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class sebot_waMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for SEBot-WA
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect SEBot-WA
function detect_sebot_wa(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /SEBot\-WA/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('SEBot-WA detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'SEBot-WA';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_sebot_wa);
# Apache .htaccess rules for SEBot-WA
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} SEBot\-WA [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} SEBot\-WA [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "SEBot\-WA" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /SEBot\-WA/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for SEBot-WA
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_sebot_wa {
default 0;
~*SEBot\-WA 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_sebot_wa) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_sebot_wa) {
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_sebot_wa) {
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: SEBot-WA
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: SEBot-WA
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: SEBot-WA
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
SEBot-WA
Robots.txt Name
SEBot-WA
Category
seo
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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