Bot signals · Web crawler

What is updown.io?

updown.io monitoring

updown.io is an HTTP(S), TCP and ICMP monitoring service. It checks the addresses its customers set up and reports anomalies, and its requests contain updown.io in the user agent.

risk.is_crawler

Official documentation All web crawlers

01 · Profile

updown.io at a glance.

What to look for in your logs, and what the lookup API returns for its addresses.

Type: Web crawler
User agent: updown.io
API flag: risk.is_crawler

A user agent alone never sets a flag. Anyone can claim to be updown.io; the flag follows the address the request comes from.

02 · In the response

What a match looks like.

A lookup of a updown.io 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 updown.io while risk.is_crawler is false should not be trusted as updown.io.

GET /api/lookup/{ip}?key=YOUR_API_KEY

{
  // … location and network fields …
  "risk": {
    "is_ai": false,
    "is_crawler": true,
    "is_scanner": false
  }
}

03 · Control

Allow or block updown.io.

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.