SERankingPCFBot
SE Ranking •
Web Crawler
What is SERankingPCFBot?
SE Ranking says PCF means Page Content Fetch: this bot retrieves public pages for search and answer-engine visibility reports. It is distinct from SE Ranking's backlinks crawler already listed in the directory. The operator says SERankingPCFBot always follows robots.txt and does not use fetched content to train machine-learning models.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; SERankingPCFBot/1.0; +https://seranking.com/pcf-crawler)
How to Control SERankingPCFBot
Block Completely
To prevent SERankingPCFBot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block SERankingPCFBot
User-agent: SERankingPCFBot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: SERankingPCFBot
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: SERankingPCFBot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify SERankingPCFBot
Verification Method:
Forward-confirm reverse DNS for the source IP under sr-srv.net, as SE Ranking documents; the user-agent alone may be spoofed.
Forward-confirm reverse DNS for the source IP under sr-srv.net, as SE Ranking documents; the user-agent alone may be spoofed.
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect SERankingPCFBot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/SERankingPCFBot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla\/5\.0 \(compatible; SERankingPCFBot\/1\.0; \+https\:\/\/seranking\.com\/pcf\-crawler\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/SERankingPCFBot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*SE Ranking.*SERankingPCFBot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for SERankingPCFBot
function detect_serankingpcfbot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/SERankingPCFBot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('SERankingPCFBot 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for SERankingPCFBot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_serankingpcfbot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'SERankingPCFBot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class serankingpcfbotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for SERankingPCFBot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect SERankingPCFBot
function detect_serankingpcfbot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /SERankingPCFBot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('SERankingPCFBot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'SERankingPCFBot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_serankingpcfbot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for SERankingPCFBot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} SERankingPCFBot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} SERankingPCFBot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "SERankingPCFBot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /SERankingPCFBot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for SERankingPCFBot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_serankingpcfbot {
default 0;
~*SERankingPCFBot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_serankingpcfbot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_serankingpcfbot) {
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_serankingpcfbot) {
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: SERankingPCFBot
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: SERankingPCFBot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: SERankingPCFBot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
SERankingPCFBot
Robots.txt Name
SERankingPCFBot
Category
seo
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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