Ask with no user agent

lots of hits

[Bewenched]

We've been getting alot of hits like that as well. I mean ALOT

I spend way too much time trying to make sure they are valid than I should if they would just give a user agent name.

[beemerrider]

Ok, I need a little education on user agent names. I understand the results when I look at a rDNS, but how and who enters what information and where, so I see the UA. One of my sitez has been getting slammed really hard by what I thought were spammers. After tracking down regions, IP addresses, etc. I noticed that the bulk of the visits were by search engines with no UA and I got one with no PTR record.

Anybody have a link to point me in the right direction so I can educate myself and not eat up time from someone on this board.

Thnaks, Bruce

[wilderness]

Anybody have a link to point me in the right direction so I can educate myself and not eat up time from someone on this board.

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

will advise you of IP ranges for major search engines
www.iplists.com

[jdMorgan]

> how and who enters what information and where, so I see the UA?

The programmers who write the client (browser, robot, HTTP-access library) are the ones who do or do not code the User-agent string into the client. Properly done, the client will send the User-agent string in an HTTP "User-agent:" request header to the server, and this UA request header will be properly-formatted according to the guidelines set by the Netscape user-agent strings document [mozilla.org] in the mid-90s (now updated). This HTTP request header is visible using any on-line "Headers checker" tool or browser extension.

As Webmasters, we like to see a properly-constructed user-agent string with a robot name that never changes except for revision number, some indication of the name of the using organization, and the URL of a Web page that fully explains the purpose of the robot and how the data it collects will be used. Everything in this string should be considered "permanent" except for the robot's revision number; That makes life a lot easier for us. Most of the major robots used by the major search engines follow this plan, but minor robots and many research projects --even at the major search companies-- don't.

Jim

[wilderness]

As Webmasters, we like to see a properly-constructed user-agent string

Guess this means "Jim's Mean Machine; [e-mail]" is out ;)

Don