Aggressive Official docs Data Scrapers

news-please

Operated by Open Source

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
news-please
Category:
Data Scrapers
Operator:
Open Source
Safety:
Aggressive
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10
Official docs:
github.com

Confirmed by the operator

Open Source names news-please on its own documentation page, linked above. The token, purpose and robots.txt behaviour on this profile come from that page, re-checked on September 22, 2026.

What is news-please?

An open-source news crawler and extractor library.

An open-source news crawler and extractor library.
news-please 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 news-please 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 news-please?

✅ Minimal Impact - Blocking news-please has no meaningful effect on your search engine rankings or organic traffic.
Block this bot - it provides no SEO benefit and wastes crawl budget.

How to block news-please with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: news-please</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately. For aggressive bots, supplement with server-level blocking for guaranteed enforcement.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: news-please Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: news-please Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: news-please Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block news-please if ($http_user_agent ~* "news\-please") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block news-please SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "news\-please" 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 news-please safe to allow?

🔴 news-please is classified as Aggressive. This bot has been observed ignoring robots.txt directives, crawling at excessive rates that impact server performance, or collecting data in ways that violate standard web etiquette. We strongly recommend blocking this bot at both the robots.txt level AND server level (Nginx/Apache/Cloudflare WAF). A robots.txt block alone may be insufficient if the bot does not respect it.

What does news-please do?

Understanding news-please'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 news-please?
The official user-agent string for news-please is: news-please. 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 news-please by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP - legitimate bots resolve back to their operator's domain.
Is news-please safe?
🔴 news-please is classified as Aggressive. This bot has been observed ignoring robots.txt directives, crawling at excessive rates that impact server performance, or collecting data in ways that violate standard web etiquette. We strongly recommend blocking this bot at both the robots.txt level AND server level (Nginx/Apache/Cloudflare WAF). A robots.txt block alone may be insufficient if the bot does not respect it.
Will blocking news-please hurt my SEO?
✅ Minimal Impact - Blocking news-please has no meaningful effect on your search engine rankings or organic traffic.
How do I block news-please in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: news-please
Disallow: /

This instructs news-please 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 news-please respect robots.txt?
⚠️ news-please may not always respect robots.txt. For guaranteed blocking, combine robots.txt with server-level rules (Nginx if/return 403, Apache SetEnvIf, or Cloudflare WAF).
How do I verify if news-please is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string news-please (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "news-please" /var/log/nginx/access.log). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For news-please specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).
What is the crawl frequency of news-please?
Crawl frequency data for news-please is not publicly documented. Monitor your logs to understand actual visit patterns.
Can I block news-please from specific pages only?
Yes. Instead of a global Disallow: / you can restrict news-please to specific paths:
User-agent: news-please
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /staging/
Allow: /

This allows news-please everywhere except the listed paths. Path matching in robots.txt uses prefix matching - Disallow: /private/ blocks /private/page.html but NOT /public/private/.
Is news-please causing high server load?
If news-please 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 "news-please".
4. Use fail2ban to auto-block IPs exceeding request thresholds.

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