What is NetcraftSurveyAgent?
NetcraftSurveyAgent is operated by Netcraft, a cybersecurity company specializing in threat intelligence and digital risk protection. The bot crawls websites to build threat intelligence databases that detect phishing sites and online threats, powering brand protection services that protect organizations from fraud and scams. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when NetcraftSurveyAgent visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Netcraft |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | September 14, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
NetcraftSurveyAgent's traffic pattern depends on the intelligence being collected. It may revisit specific pages on a schedule, crawl broader sections of your site, or appear only when information is requested. Its request scope and frequency reflect the underlying objective.
NetcraftSurveyAgent's User Agent
| User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NetcraftSurveyAgent/1.0; +info@netcraft.com) |
How To Block NetcraftSurveyAgent With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block NetcraftSurveyAgent from accessing your website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all intelligence gatherers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: NetcraftSurveyAgent # https://knownagents.com/agents/netcraftsurveyagent
Disallow: /Insights for NetcraftSurveyAgent
As of September 14, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
6% of top websites block NetcraftSurveyAgent in their robots.txts.
Overall Intelligence Gatherer Traffic
3.3% of all web traffic came from intelligence gatherers.
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by NetcraftSurveyAgent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block NetcraftSurveyAgent?
Confirm NetcraftSurveyAgent's purpose before blocking it. Intelligence gatherers may collect competitive research, measure advertisements, or evaluate pages for brand safety. Weigh any benefit against sharing business or page-level data with its operator or clients. For context, 6% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for NetcraftSurveyAgent.
Does NetcraftSurveyAgent Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. NetcraftSurveyAgent is expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the appropriate first step. Automatic Robots.txt can add and maintain that rule, while Agent Analytics lets you verify whether NetcraftSurveyAgent respects it.
Does NetcraftSurveyAgent Access Private Content?
No special access. NetcraftSurveyAgent can read publicly available pages but cannot bypass authentication. Assume anything you publish openly may be collected.
How Can I Tell if NetcraftSurveyAgent Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks NetcraftSurveyAgent visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "NetcraftSurveyAgent". Traffic may range from repeated requests to the same pages to broader crawls or one-off fetches. Because NetcraftSurveyAgent does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
Why Is NetcraftSurveyAgent Visiting My Website?
Netcraft or one of its clients may be gathering competitive intelligence, measuring advertisements, or evaluating content for brand safety. The pages requested reflect the underlying objective.