Sogou web spider
Sogou •
Since 2004
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What is Sogou web spider?
Sogou web spider is the crawler for Sogou, a major Chinese search engine now part of Tencent. Sogou is known for innovative features including integration with WeChat (China's dominant messaging app) for searching within the WeChat ecosystem. The crawler indexes Chinese-language content and plays a crucial role in making content discoverable within Tencent's vast ecosystem. For businesses targeting Chinese markets, especially those using WeChat for marketing, Sogou's crawler is increasingly important.
User Agent String
Sogou web spider/4.0(+http://www.sogou.com/docs/help/webmasters.htm#07)
How to Control Sogou web spider
Block Completely
To prevent Sogou web spider from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Sogou web spider
User-agent: Sogou web spider
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Sogou web spider
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: Sogou web spider
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Sogou web spider
Verification Method:
Sogou spider identification
Sogou spider identification
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Sogou web spider in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Sogou web spider/i
Strict Pattern
/^Sogou web spider/4\.0\(\+http\://www\.sogou\.com/docs/help/webmasters\.htm\#07\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/Sogou web spider[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Sogou.*Sogou/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Sogou web spider
function detect_sogou_web_spider() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Sogou web spider/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Sogou web spider 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Sogou web spider
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_sogou_web_spider():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Sogou web spider'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class SogouwebspiderMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Sogou web spider
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Sogou web spider
function detectSogouwebspider(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Sogou web spider/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Sogou web spider detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Sogou web spider';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectSogouwebspider);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Sogou web spider
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Sogou web spider [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Sogou web spider [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Sogou web spider" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Sogou web spider/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Sogou web spider
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_sogou_web_spider {
default 0;
~*Sogou web spider 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_sogou_web_spider) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_sogou_web_spider) {
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_sogou_web_spider) {
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 | Allow | Essential for product visibility in search results |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Allow | Improves documentation discoverability for developers |
| Corporate Site | Allow | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: Sogou web spider
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: Sogou web spider
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Sogou web spider
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Sogou web spider
Robots.txt Name
Sogou web spider
Category
search
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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