SiteImprove
Siteimprove •
Since 2010
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is SiteImprove?
Siteimprove is a comprehensive digital optimization platform that helps organizations improve their digital presence through quality assurance, accessibility compliance, SEO, and analytics. Their crawler performs deep analysis of websites to identify issues with accessibility (WCAG compliance), SEO problems, broken links, misspellings, and policy compliance. Particularly strong in the accessibility space, Siteimprove helps organizations meet legal requirements and improve user experience for people with disabilities. The platform is popular among government agencies, educational institutions, and enterprises prioritizing digital accessibility.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; SITEIMPROVE)
How to Control SiteImprove
Block Completely
To prevent SiteImprove from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block SiteImprove
User-agent: SITEIMPROVE
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: SITEIMPROVE
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: SITEIMPROVE
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify SiteImprove
Verification Method:
Siteimprove user agent identification
Siteimprove user agent identification
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect SiteImprove in your application:
Basic Pattern
/SiteImprove/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible; SITEIMPROVE\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/SiteImprove[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Siteimprove.*SiteImprove/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for SiteImprove
function detect_siteimprove() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/SiteImprove/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('SiteImprove 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for SiteImprove
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_siteimprove():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'SiteImprove'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class SiteImproveMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for SiteImprove
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect SiteImprove
function detectSiteImprove(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /SiteImprove/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('SiteImprove detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'SiteImprove';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectSiteImprove);
# Apache .htaccess rules for SiteImprove
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} SiteImprove [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} SiteImprove [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "SiteImprove" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /SiteImprove/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for SiteImprove
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_siteimprove {
default 0;
~*SiteImprove 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_siteimprove) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_siteimprove) {
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_siteimprove) {
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: SITEIMPROVE
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: SITEIMPROVE
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: SITEIMPROVE
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
SiteImprove
Robots.txt Name
SITEIMPROVE
Category
seo, monitoring
Respects robots.txt
Yes
Copied to clipboard!