ComputerForgeBot
If you found this name in your server logs, this page explains who we are and what the bot does.
Who runs it
Computer Forge Ltd (company number 10548757), Luton. We are an IT support company and we use the bot to look at the public website of a small business before we write to them.
What it reads
A business's public home page and contact page, plus the robots.txt file. It also checks that a handful of links on those pages still work. It reads each site once a month at most. It does not log in, fill in forms, or look at anything that needs a password.
What it records
It records the contact details that a business publishes on those pages, including email addresses and phone numbers, and the date it looked.
How it behaves
- One request at a time to any one site, a second apart.
- It reads
robots.txtfirst and does not fetch anything it forbids. If the server reports a server error (a 5xx reply) or does not answer when asked forrobots.txt, it skips that site. Any other reply, including norobots.txtat all, is treated as no restrictions. - It identifies itself with this user agent:
ComputerForgeBot/1.0 (+https://computerforge.co.uk/bot/; hello@computerforge.co.uk)
How to opt out
Add these two lines to your robots.txt and the bot will stop visiting your site:
User-agent: ComputerForgeBot Disallow: /
Or just email hello@computerforge.co.uk and we will take your site off our list.