What is xovibot?
xovibot is the web crawler for XOVI, a German SEO analytics and monitoring suite. The bot crawls web pages to gather data for XOVI's keyword tracking, backlink analysis, and site auditing features. XOVI is primarily used in the German-speaking market and provides comprehensive SEO tools for agencies and in-house teams. The bot respects robots.txt directives.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; xovibot/2.0; +http://www.xovi.com/bot)
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How to Control xovibot
Block Completely
To prevent xovibot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
User-agent: xovibot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: xovibot
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: xovibot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify xovibot
Verification Method:
Check user agent string for xovibot identifier
Learn more in the official documentation .
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect xovibot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/xovibot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible; xovibot/2\.0; \+http\://www\.xovi\.com/bot\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/xovibot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*XOVI.*xovibot/i
Implementation Examples
PHP
Python
JavaScript
.htaccess
Nginx
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function detect_xovibot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/xovibot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('xovibot 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
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import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_xovibot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'xovibot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
class xovibotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
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const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect xovibot
function detectxovibot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /xovibot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('xovibot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'xovibot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectxovibot);
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RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} xovibot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} xovibot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "xovibot" is_bot=1
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /xovibot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
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map $http_user_agent $is_xovibot {
default 0;
~*xovibot 1;
}
server {
if ($is_xovibot) {
return 403;
}
location / {
if ($is_xovibot) {
root /var/www/cached;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html @backend;
}
try_files $uri @backend;
}
location @backend {
if ($is_xovibot) {
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
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User-agent: xovibot
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
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User-agent: xovibot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
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User-agent: xovibot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
xovibot
Robots.txt Name
xovibot
Category
seo
Respects robots.txt
Yes