Bot signals · Web crawler
What is Netarkivet?
Netarkivet (Royal Danish Library) web archive crawler
Netarkivet is Denmark’s national web archive, run by the Royal Danish Library. Under the Danish Legal Deposit Act it collects the Danish part of the internet several times a year, and its crawlers do not respect robots.txt. Its user agent names the heritrix crawler and kb.dk/netarkivindsamling.
01 · Profile
Netarkivet at a glance.
What to look for in your logs, and what the lookup API returns for its addresses.
- Type
- Web crawler
- API flag
risk.is_crawler
A user agent alone never sets a flag. Anyone can claim to be Netarkivet; the flag follows the address the request comes from.
02 · In the response
What a match looks like.
A lookup of a Netarkivet address sets risk.is_crawler. The flags come with geolocation and network data in the same response, for API keys on every paid plan.
The response says which kind of bot an address belongs to, not which operator. A request that claims to be Netarkivet while risk.is_crawler is false should not be trusted as Netarkivet.
{
// … location and network fields …
"risk": {
"is_ai": false,
"is_crawler": true,
"is_scanner": false
}
}
03 · Control
Allow or block Netarkivet.
Your options
- robots.txt works only for crawlers that choose to follow it. Check the operator’s documentation for the token it reads.
- Firewall, WAF or CDN. Many offer bot rules you can allow or deny by category. Use them to enforce what robots.txt only asks for.
- In your app. Look up the client address and allow or deny on
risk.is_crawler, alongside the user agent. - Never on the user agent alone. Blocking the name stops only honest clients; allowing it lets anyone in who borrows it.
04 · Questions
About Netarkivet.
What is Netarkivet?
Netarkivet is Denmark’s national web archive, run by the Royal Danish Library. Under the Danish Legal Deposit Act it collects the Danish part of the internet several times a year, and its crawlers do not respect robots.txt. Its user agent names the heritrix crawler and kb.dk/netarkivindsamling.
How do I block Netarkivet?
Deny it at your firewall, WAF or CDN, or look up each client address and deny requests where risk.is_crawler is true. Do not rely on the user agent alone.
Can I trust a request that says it is Netarkivet?
Not on the user agent alone: any client can send a bot’s name in its user agent. A user agent alone never sets a flag. Check the address with the free bot checker or the lookup API.
Which risk flag does Netarkivet set?
Its addresses set risk.is_crawler in the lookup response. The risk flags come with every paid plan.
From the blog
Go deeper.
Related bots
Recognise Netarkivet on every request.
is_ai, is_crawler and is_scanner in every lookup, on every paid plan, from 9,00 € a month (VAT included).