AllpawsBot

AllpawsBot is the web reader AllPaws uses to help a pet care business set up its AllPaws account. It identifies itself to websites with this user agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AllpawsBot/1.0; +https://allpaws.com/bot)

When it visits

AllpawsBot only visits a website that a business gives AllPaws, when the business signs up or asks AllPaws to fill in its setup from its website. It reads the site once each time it’s asked to. It doesn’t crawl the web or revisit sites on a schedule.

What it reads

It reads the home page and up to 11 more pages of the same site, such as services, prices, vaccination and other policies, hours and contact pages. It reads one page at a time and notes links to PDFs on those pages. Along the way it checks the site’s robots.txt and sitemap, and it may try a few more addresses when a page can’t be read.

It doesn’t fill in forms, log in or read anything behind a password. It doesn’t read social media or listing sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and Yelp.

What it’s used for

What AllpawsBot reads from a business’s website is used only to suggest that business’s own setup in AllPaws.

How to block it

AllpawsBot follows a site’s robots.txt: the rules for AllpawsBot if there are any, or else the rules for all robots (User-agent: *). If a site’s robots.txt can’t be read (a server error, too many requests or no answer), AllpawsBot reads nothing from that site.

To block AllpawsBot, add these lines to your robots.txt:

User-agent: AllpawsBot
Disallow: /

Contact

If you have a question about AllpawsBot, email us at info@allpaws.com.