Yahoo! Once Again Caught Disobeying Robots.txt Rules

Updated January 7, 2025 • 2 comments

Hmmm.. Let’s see here. Google can do it. MSN/Live can do it. Even Ask can do it. So why oh why can’t Yahoo’s grubby Slurp crawler manage to adhere to robots.txt crawl directives? Just when I thought Yahoo! finally figured it out, I discover more Slurp tracks in my Blackhole trap for bad spiders:

IP:   74.6.17.163
Host: 163.17.6.74.in-addr.arpa llf520189.crawl.yahoo.net

[2008-07-30 (Wed) 16:51:59] "GET /blackhole/ HTTP/1.0"
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)

OrgName:    Inktomi Corporation
OrgID:      INKT
Address:    701 First Ave
City:       Sunnyvale
StateProv:  CA
PostalCode: 94089
Country:    US

NetRange:   74.6.0.0 - 74.6.255.255
CIDR:       74.6.0.0/16

NetName:    INKTOMI-BLK-6
NetHandle:  NET-74-6-0-0-1
Parent:     NET-74-0-0-0-0
NetType:    Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.YAHOO.COM
NameServer: NS2.YAHOO.COM
NameServer: NS3.YAHOO.COM
NameServer: NS4.YAHOO.COM
NameServer: NS5.YAHOO.COM

RegDate:    2006-02-13
Updated:    2007-03-09

RAbuseHandle: NETWO857-ARIN
RAbuseName:   Network Abuse
RAbusePhone:  +1-408-349-3300
RAbuseEmail:  network-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com

OrgAbuseHandle: NETWO857-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   Network Abuse
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-408-349-3300
OrgAbuseEmail:  network-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com

OrgTechHandle: NA258-ARIN
OrgTechName:   Netblock Admin
OrgTechPhone:  +1-408-349-3300
OrgTechEmail:  netblockadmin@yahoo-inc.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-07-29 19:10

I enjoy the control provided by the robots.txt protocol and look forward to the day when all of the major search engines get it right.

blacklist ip robots search server spider websites yahoo

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Web Developer. Book Author. Secretly Important.

2 responses to “Yahoo! Once Again Caught Disobeying Robots.txt Rules”

Donace 2008/08/18 7:35 am

This just shows that Google’s nearest competitor is just oh so far behind in the game.

Jeff Starr 2008/08/18 4:11 pm • Post Author

So true. I mean, how difficult is it for a computer to obey the operational rules it’s been given? I honestly can’t think of any excuse for Slurp’s recent deviancy into explicitly forbidden territory. Given that computers do not make “mistakes,” such illicit crawl behavior seems intentional. In either case, it’s not looking good for Yahoo.

Comments are closed for this post. Something to add? Let me know.

Donace 2008/08/18 7:35 am

This just shows that Google’s nearest competitor is just oh so far behind in the game.
Jeff Starr 2008/08/18 4:11 pm • Post Author

So true. I mean, how difficult is it for a computer to obey the operational rules it’s been given? I honestly can’t think of any excuse for Slurp’s recent deviancy into explicitly forbidden territory. Given that computers do not make “mistakes,” such illicit crawl behavior seems intentional. In either case, it’s not looking good for Yahoo.