🤖 Overview

SkimWordsBot is a legitimate web crawler operated by SkimWords, a tool used for content analysis and keyword density measurement, first documented on their official website (skimwords.com). The bot’s sole purpose is to index public web pages to provide users with detailed keyword frequency reports, competitor content audits, and SEO recommendations. SkimWordsBot is not affiliated with any threat actors and is designed to support legitimate search engine optimization (SEO) workflows.

🌐 Technical Behavior

SkimWordsBot performs HTTP/1.1 GET requests with a default crawl frequency of approximately 2–5 requests per second per domain, though this may vary based on server response times. According to public IP intelligence sources, the bot originates from a set of IP addresses registered under DigitalOcean and Amazon Web Services, primarily in US-based data centers. It follows standard robots.txt directives and includes the `User-Agent` header identifying itself as `SkimWordsBot/1.0`. The bot supports both HTTP and HTTPS, and it does not execute JavaScript, relying solely on raw HTML parsing. Crawl depth is limited to 10 levels by default, and the bot respects `Crawl-Delay` directives when set. SkimWordsBot does not attempt to access login-protected pages or submit forms.

📋 robots.txt Compliance

SkimWordsBot fully honors robots.txt `Disallow` directives, as confirmed by the SkimWords official documentation and publicly available logs from webmasters. The bot checks the file before each crawl session and will immediately cease access to any path listed. However, it does not recognize `Allow` directives for subpaths if a broader `Disallow` exists. The company provides a dedicated support page (skimwords.com/robots) detailing how to block the bot entirely using `User-agent: SkimWordsBot`.

🔍 Detection Indicators

The primary User-Agent string is `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; SkimWordsBot/1.0; +https://skimwords.com/bot)`. Additionally, the bot sends a custom HTTP header `X-SkimWords-Bot: true` in every request, which can be used for server‑side identification. The bot’s IP addresses are listed in the official SkimWords API documentation (skimwords.com/ip-ranges). Behavioral fingerprints include a remarkably consistent request interval (no bursts) and a lack of `Accept: text/html` variation—it always requests `text/html,application/xhtml+xml`. The bot does not send local storage cookies or session identifiers.

📊 Data Usage

Collected data is used exclusively to power the SkimWords keyword analysis platform, which provides users with reports on keyword frequency, density, and content overlap. No AI training or content storage occurs—the service caches page content only temporarily (24 hours) for report generation, after which it is discarded. SkimWords explicitly states in its privacy policy (skimwords.com/privacy) that no personal data is retained, and the bot only processes publicly accessible text.

⚙️ Rate Limiting Policy

Because SkimWordsBot can generate sustained traffic of up to 5 requests per second, webmasters are advised to implement rate limiting at the web server or firewall level (e.g., limit to 10 requests per minute per IP) to prevent unnecessary load. The rationale for threshold-based blocking is that while legitimate, the crawler’s behavior is aggressive enough to degrade performance on shared hosting environments without a cap. SkimWords recommends a `Crawl-Delay: 10` setting in robots.txt for best results.

ⓘ 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.