linkfluence bot

What is linkfluence?

Linkfluence is a specialized web crawler operated by Meltwater, a media monitoring and analytics company. Founded in 2006, Linkfluence established itself as a leader in social media intelligence before being acquired by Meltwater in 2021. It's technically classified as an intelligence-gathering crawler that collects and analyzes web data for brand sentiment and market insights.

The crawler works by systematically visiting websites, blogs, forums, and social media platforms to gather publicly available content relevant to its clients' interests. It identifies itself through two primary user agent strings: the generic identifier linkfluence and a specialized agent called Yak Bot with the string Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YaK/1.0; http://linkfluence.com/; bot@linkfluence.com).

Linkfluence's crawler is designed to respect standard web protocols, including robots.txt directives. It operates within ethical boundaries, focusing on publicly accessible data rather than attempting to circumvent access controls. The crawler's visit frequency is determined by client needs, with some sites being scanned daily while others may be visited less frequently.

Why is linkfluence crawling my site?

Linkfluence is likely crawling your site to collect data for brand monitoring, competitive intelligence, or market research on behalf of its clients. The crawler typically targets content that mentions specific brands, products, or topics relevant to Meltwater's customers.

The bot prioritizes social media content, blog posts, news articles, and forum discussions that contain client-defined keywords. If your site publishes content related to brands, industry trends, or consumer opinions, it's a natural target for Linkfluence's data collection efforts.

The frequency of visits depends on how relevant your content is to Linkfluence's clients and how often you publish new material. Sites that regularly post about trending topics or popular brands may experience more frequent crawling. This crawling is generally considered authorized as it accesses only publicly available information.

What is the purpose of linkfluence?

Linkfluence serves as a data collection tool for Meltwater's consumer insights and brand monitoring services. Its primary function is to gather public web content that helps brands understand their online presence, track sentiment, identify emerging trends, and benchmark against competitors.

The data collected by Linkfluence is processed using artificial intelligence to provide real-time brand perception analysis, trend prediction, and campaign performance tracking. Major brands like LVMH and Nike have used Linkfluence to analyze fashion trends and athlete endorsements, respectively.

For website owners, there's no direct benefit to being crawled by Linkfluence, as the service is designed to benefit Meltwater's clients rather than the sites being indexed. However, the crawler is designed to be respectful of server resources and adheres to GDPR and similar regulations by processing only publicly accessible data.

How do I block linkfluence?

If you wish to prevent Linkfluence from crawling your website, you can do so through your robots.txt file. Linkfluence respects standard robots.txt directives, making this the simplest method to control its access. To block the crawler completely, add the following rules to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: linkfluence
Disallow: /

This directive instructs the crawler to avoid all pages on your site. However, blocking is generally unnecessary unless the crawler consumes excessive server resources or accesses sensitive areas of your site.

For sites using Cloudflare or other Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, you can also create rules to challenge or block requests containing the Linkfluence user agent. This approach provides an additional layer of control if robots.txt proves insufficient.

Keep in mind that blocking Linkfluence won't have any negative impact on your site's visibility in search engines, as it's not a search engine crawler. The only potential consequence is that your content won't be included in Meltwater's brand monitoring and market research reports, which is unlikely to affect your site's performance or traffic.