This post is an attempt to officially document the Tweetmeme bot's invalid User-Agent string. Maybe someone from Tweetmeme will see this, and configure their bot to use a more appropriate User-Agent string. I've already alerted Tweetmeme of the concern via Twitter, but no one has responded.Here's the problem. The Tweetmeme bot claims it's Firefox 3.0.6 as shown here:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.6) \
Gecko/2009011913 Firefox/3.0.6 TweetmemeBot
Unless the TweetmemeBot is actually a Firefox web-browser (which I doubt it is), this is an inappropriate and invalid User-Agent string.
Misrepresenting yourself, or your bot, in the User-Agent string is frowned upon for a number of reasons:
As a side note, I should also add the TweetmemeBot does not obey the restrictions and limitations I configured in my root robots.txt file.
Of course, like any good online citizen, I won't end the conversation without making a positive suggestion. To resolve this concern, the TweetmemeBot should change its User-Agent string to something more unique and appropriate:
If I'm misinformed and I'm completely wrong about the TweetmemeBot, I would encourage the Tweetmeme team to contact me or find me on Twitter.
- It skews web-statistics and other reports that webmasters and bloggers run against their server logs. Since the TweetmemeBot says it's Firefox, most log analysis tools (e.g., webalizer) will count the TweetmemeBot as a hit from a user in Firefox. But it's not a real hit from an actual user, it's just the TweetmemeBot.
- A fake User-Agent string makes it harder for webmasters and administrators to deny access to bots they don't like, or bots that don't play fair.
As a side note, I should also add the TweetmemeBot does not obey the restrictions and limitations I configured in my root robots.txt file.
Of course, like any good online citizen, I won't end the conversation without making a positive suggestion. To resolve this concern, the TweetmemeBot should change its User-Agent string to something more unique and appropriate:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; TweetmemeBot/1.0; +http://www.tweetmeme.com/)
If I'm misinformed and I'm completely wrong about the TweetmemeBot, I would encourage the Tweetmeme team to contact me or find me on Twitter.
Did you find this post helpful, or at least, interesting?