🤖 Overview

hisoftware accverify is a web crawler operated by HiSoftware (now part of Progress Software after its acquisition of HiSoftware in 2015). Its purpose is to perform automated accessibility compliance audits against web content, feeding results into the HiSoftware Compliance Sheriff platform. This bot systematically scans web pages to detect violations of accessibility standards such as WCAG 2.1, Section 508, and ADA requirements, helping organizations maintain legally compliant digital properties. Documentation on the official HiSoftware site (now archived under Progress) confirms the bot is used exclusively for accessibility testing and does not index content for search or AI training.

🌐 Technical Behavior

The hisoftware accverify bot performs sequential, page-by-page crawling at a moderate rate, typically 2–5 requests per second per domain. It follows links within the same domain to map site structure but does not crawl external outbound links. The bot uses standard HTTP/1.1 and HTTPS protocols and respects robots.txt directives before initiating scans. IP ranges are not publicly documented, but the bot is known to originate from a limited set of IPs registered to HiSoftware or its cloud infrastructure. Requests include the User-Agent string hisoftware accverify (case-sensitive) and no additional custom headers. The bot does not execute JavaScript or render dynamic content unless specifically configured in the Compliance Sheriff tool; static HTML is the primary target. It also sends a Referer header containing the scan origin URL for audit trail purposes.

📋 robots.txt Compliance

According to HiSoftware’s archived technical documentation, the hisoftware accverify bot fully honors robots.txt rules, including both Disallow and Allow directives. It will not crawl any paths explicitly forbidden in the robots.txt file. However, site administrators should note that if a page is disallowed, the accessibility scan will simply skip it, potentially leaving compliance gaps. The bot also respects Crawl-delay directives when present, slowing its request rate accordingly.

🔍 Detection Indicators

The primary detection indicator is the User-Agent string: hisoftware accverify (exact string, no version suffix). The bot also sets a From header with an email address (typically [email protected] or [email protected]) for administrative contact. Behavioral fingerprints include sequential request patterns with consistent intervals (1–3 seconds between requests) and a complete absence of image or CSS resource fetching. The bot does not include Accept-Encoding or Accept-Language headers.

📊 Data Usage

Collected data – including page markup, ARIA attributes, alt text, heading structures, and form labels – is stored in the Compliance Sheriff cloud platform for the sole purpose of generating accessibility compliance reports. No content is used for AI training, search indexing, or analytics. Data is retained only as long as the user’s subscription allows; after account closure, data is purged within 90 days per HiSoftware’s privacy policy (archived at Progress Privacy Center). Reports are delivered to the customer and are not shared with third parties.

⚙️ Rate Limiting Policy

Because hisoftware accverify operates at a modest but persistent rate and may trigger performance monitoring alerts on high-traffic or resource-constrained servers, rate limiting is recommended. A threshold-based block (e.g., 30 requests per minute) preserves server stability without blocking the legitimate accessibility audit, which typically completes in under an hour.

ⓘ Data Notice: The information presented above has been compiled from publicly available internet sources. Boteraser aggregates this data solely for informational purposes and does not independently classify, evaluate, or endorse any findings about the bots listed. The accuracy and completeness of this information is the sole responsibility of the original publishers. Boteraser and its operators accept no liability for any decisions made based on this data.