Bot signals · Web crawler
What is TurnitinBot?
TurnitinBot is Turnitin’s web crawler. It collects content from the internet so Turnitin can compare student papers against it and help educational institutions prevent plagiarism, and it also indexes the full-text articles of Turnitin’s content partners and Crossref members.
01 · Profile
TurnitinBot at a glance.
What to look for in your logs, and what the lookup API returns for its addresses.
- Type
- Web crawler
- User agent
TurnitinBotTurnitin- robots.txt
User-agent: TurnitinBot- API flag
risk.is_crawler
A user agent alone never sets a flag. Anyone can claim to be TurnitinBot; the flag follows the address the request comes from.
02 · In the response
What a match looks like.
A lookup of a TurnitinBot 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 TurnitinBot while risk.is_crawler is false should not be trusted as TurnitinBot.
{
// … location and network fields …
"risk": {
"is_ai": false,
"is_crawler": true,
"is_scanner": false
}
}
03 · Control
Allow or block TurnitinBot.
User-agent: TurnitinBot Disallow: /
To enforce it
- robots.txt is a request. Well-behaved bots follow it; impostors using its name don’t.
- 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 TurnitinBot.
What is TurnitinBot?
TurnitinBot is Turnitin’s web crawler. It collects content from the internet so Turnitin can compare student papers against it and help educational institutions prevent plagiarism, and it also indexes the full-text articles of Turnitin’s content partners and Crossref members.
How do I block TurnitinBot?
Add a robots.txt rule for TurnitinBot. Turnitin says its crawler respects robots.txt exclusions for both TurnitinBot and Turnitin, the shorter user agent it sometimes uses. To enforce a block rather than request one, deny it at your firewall, WAF or CDN.
Can I trust a request that says it is TurnitinBot?
Not on the user agent alone: any client can send “TurnitinBot” 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 TurnitinBot 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 TurnitinBot on every request.
is_ai, is_crawler and is_scanner in every lookup, on every paid plan, from 9,00 € a month (VAT included).