OrgProbe/2.0.0

Checking to see if my site is up?

[SumGuy]

Last week one day I got 18 hits from

OrgProbe/2.0.0 (+http//www.blocked.org.uk)

Each from a different IP, IP's were all over the place (numerically) but all were UK-based representing many different UK ISPs (most or all or practically all being residential). All hits were to my site's landing page and nothing else.

Checking as far back as 2015, I've only ever had 17 previous hits from this bot - only 3 last year, 6 in 2017, none in 2016 and 8 in 2015.

Anyone know if hits from that bot are human-initiated vs programatically scheduled?

Does that bot have a public portal - sort of like "down or just for me" ?

[lucy24]

Earlier threads:

Feb 2015: [webmasterworld.com...]
also Feb 2015: [webmasterworld.com...]
Feb 2016: [webmasterworld.com...]

Hm. Have they only just discovered that there are 11 other months in the year? Searching current (non-archived) logs, I find them only in February 2018. Oops, no, I tell a lie, there was also a lone request (different site, and just one) in January 2018.

Anyway, the consensus from those earlier threads is that it doesn't matter whether they get a 403 from your site or not, because that's not what they're checking for. Unless, of course, the name has been taken over by someone else in the interim.