Safe Data Scrapers

LivelapBot

Operated by Livelap

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
LivelapBot
Category:
Data Scrapers
Operator:
Livelap
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10
Official docs:
site.livelap.com

What is LivelapBot?

LivelapBot is the web crawler for Livelap, a Japanese news aggregation service.

LivelapBot is the web crawler for Livelap, a Japanese news aggregation service. LivelapBot is a data aggregation crawler. Unlike search bots or AI crawlers, its purpose is typically to collect content for private datasets, price monitoring, or research. Blocking LivelapBot via robots.txt or at the server level has NO negative SEO impact. If you see excessive crawl volume from this bot in your logs, a hard block is recommended.

What happens if you block LivelapBot?

✅ **Minimal Impact** - Blocking LivelapBot has no meaningful effect on your search engine rankings or organic traffic.
Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block LivelapBot with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: LivelapBot</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: LivelapBot Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: LivelapBot Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: LivelapBot Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block LivelapBot if ($http_user_agent ~* "LivelapBot") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block LivelapBot SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "LivelapBot" bad_bot Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=bad_bot
Meta robots tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
X-Robots-Tag header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is LivelapBot safe to allow?

Yes, LivelapBot is a **safe and legitimate** crawler. It is operated by Livelap, which publicly documents its crawler at an official URL and follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309). The user-agent string LivelapBot is verifiable via reverse-DNS lookup on the crawling IP addresses. You can safely allow it unless you have a specific reason to block (e.g., AI training opt-out or SEO tool visibility).
Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate LivelapBot requests resolve to livelap's domain.

What does LivelapBot do?

Understanding LivelapBot's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

  • Extracts content, prices, or data from websites
  • May be used for competitive intelligence
  • Often operates without explicit permission
  • Can increase server load and bandwidth usage
  • May violate terms of service or copyright

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for LivelapBot?
The official user-agent string for LivelapBot is: LivelapBot. This is the exact string you must use in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. User-agent matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive, but the string must be spelled correctly. You can verify that a request genuinely comes from LivelapBot by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP - legitimate bots resolve back to their operator's domain.
Is LivelapBot safe?
Yes, LivelapBot is a **safe and legitimate** crawler. It is operated by Livelap, which publicly documents its crawler at an official URL and follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309). The user-agent string LivelapBot is verifiable via reverse-DNS lookup on the crawling IP addresses. You can safely allow it unless you have a specific reason to block (e.g., AI training opt-out or SEO tool visibility).
Will blocking LivelapBot hurt my SEO?
✅ **Minimal Impact** - Blocking LivelapBot has no meaningful effect on your search engine rankings or organic traffic.
How do I block LivelapBot in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: 
User-agent: LivelapBot
Disallow: /
This instructs LivelapBot not to crawl any path on your site. The Disallow: / directive covers the entire domain including subfolders. To only block specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/). Note: robots.txt is publicly readable - any bot or human can inspect it at yourdomain.com/robots.txt.
Does LivelapBot respect robots.txt?
Yes - LivelapBot is a well-behaved bot operated by Livelap. It fetches and parses /robots.txt before crawling any page, following RFC 9309.
How do I verify if LivelapBot is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string LivelapBot (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "LivelapBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For LivelapBot specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).
What is the crawl frequency of LivelapBot?
LivelapBot crawls at a moderate rate. If you notice excessive traffic in your logs, you can add a Crawl-delay directive: 
User-agent: LivelapBot
Crawl-delay: 10
(10 second delay between requests).
Can I block LivelapBot from specific pages only?
Yes. Instead of a global Disallow: / you can restrict LivelapBot to specific paths: 
User-agent: LivelapBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /staging/
Allow: /
This allows LivelapBot everywhere except the listed paths. Path matching in robots.txt uses prefix matching - Disallow: /private/ blocks /private/page.html but NOT /public/private/.
Is LivelapBot causing high server load?
If LivelapBot is generating excessive requests, you can: 1. Add Crawl-delay: 30 below the User-agent directive in robots.txt. 2. Rate-limit the user-agent via Nginx's limit_req_zone or Apache's mod_ratelimit. 3. Block it outright at Cloudflare WAF with rule: http.user_agent contains "LivelapBot". 4. Use fail2ban to auto-block IPs exceeding request thresholds.

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