@dstiles
Many thanks for your response.
I have to admit I was quite puzzled - as TransACT's raison d'etre is that they were the very first cable company in the ACT. Their telephone services are an after-thought/commercial add-on, getting customers to bundle their services. So heaps more of their IPs are cable/static than mobile/dynamic.
... so I invoke my right to block them. happy!
Fully support your right to block anything - even Google if you so wish! I'm sure all the regulars of this forum adhere to the principle of "Do what's right for you/your website" - me included.
I just wondered if you realised that you would also be blocking a very large number of domestic and totally benign business consumers.
Regarding the UA that pfui posted: that is certainly some kind of bot UA (or a badly mangled browser or proxy that had to have been fiddled with).
No argument that it is a bot, that has been totally evident since the day it first appeared. But in my experience it is both benign and very rarely seen - therefore it is not a pest nor any danger to our websites, that I can discern. Also, I am not so extreme as to ban whole IP ranges for the sake of one bot that could be controlled otherwise (if I so desired). I only do that if the range is patently all host/colo etc., or located in a highly suspect country like Ukraine, Russia etc.
I note that it requests robots.txt, and I haven't seen anything yet that indicates it violates/disregards it - so that would seem to indicate it is polite. Only if I saw evidence that it was disregarding robots.txt, would I invoke stronger measures.
So, I reiterate what I said previously:
... if I felt it offered no benefit to my websites, I'd ban it via UA, not IP. Especially not a range that could lock out a swag of potential visitors.
All above said, purely to provide both background and my personal opinion. No criticism whatsoever implied if you disagree. ;)
