What is SurdotlyBot?
SurdotlyBot is the web crawler for Sur.ly, a content preview and link shortening service. This bot fetches content to generate previews and thumbnails for links shared through the Sur.ly platform. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when SurdotlyBot visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Sur.ly |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | No |
| Insights Last Updated | September 14, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
SurdotlyBot usually makes a single request within seconds of a URL being shared, without crawling further. Traffic rises and falls with sharing activity, so a widely circulated link can produce a sharp burst of fetches.
SurdotlyBot's User Agent
| User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; SurdotlyBot/1.0; +http://sur.ly/bot.html) |
How To Block SurdotlyBot With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to request that SurdotlyBot not access your website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to request the same of all fetchers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: SurdotlyBot # https://knownagents.com/agents/surdotlybot
Disallow: /Insights for SurdotlyBot
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 SurdotlyBot in their robots.txts.
Overall Fetcher Traffic
1.7% of all web traffic came from fetchers.
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by SurdotlyBot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block SurdotlyBot?
Usually not. Blocking SurdotlyBot may leave shared links without a title or image, making them less inviting to click. If it begins fetching at unexpected volume, try rate limiting before blocking it outright. For context, 6% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for SurdotlyBot.
Does SurdotlyBot Follow Robots.txt Rules?
No. SurdotlyBot is not expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule only communicates your preference. Enforce the block with firewall or server rules, then use Agent Analytics to verify that its requests stop.
Does SurdotlyBot Access Private Content?
No. SurdotlyBot has no credentials and should access only the public URL and assets needed for a preview. It does not continue through the rest of your site.
How Can I Tell if SurdotlyBot Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks SurdotlyBot visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "SurdotlyBot". Look for a page and its preview assets being requested without follow-up navigation. Because SurdotlyBot does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
Why Is SurdotlyBot Visiting My Website?
Someone shared a link to your page. SurdotlyBot fetched it to build a preview card, and each new share may trigger another request. A spike often means your content is circulating more widely.