SMTBot

What is SMTBot?

SMTBot is an intelligence gathering web crawler operated by SimilarTech, a company specializing in market intelligence and technology profiling. First seen in web server logs around 2014, SMTBot is classified as a marketing intelligence crawler that scans websites to identify and collect information about the technologies and digital tools they use.

The bot works by systematically visiting web pages and analyzing their structure, code, and components to detect specific technology implementations, such as content management systems, analytics tools, marketing platforms, and other software solutions. SMTBot identifies itself in server logs with user agent strings like SMTBot (similartech.com/smtbot) or the more detailed Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; SMTBot/1.0; +http://www.similartech.com/smtbot).

Unlike search engine crawlers that index content for public search results, SMTBot focuses specifically on technology stack detection. It typically operates through cloud-based IP addresses, with a notable presence in North American and European data centers. You can find more information about SMTBot on the SimilarTech website or through their documentation page.

Why is SMTBot crawling my site?

SMTBot is visiting your website to identify and catalog the technologies you're using. It's particularly interested in detecting:

• JavaScript libraries and frameworks
• Content management systems
• Marketing and analytics tools
• E-commerce platforms
• Advertising technologies
• Security implementations
• Server technologies

The crawler doesn't focus on your content itself but rather on the technical infrastructure supporting your site. SMTBot typically follows a distributed crawling pattern, visiting sites across various industries to build comprehensive technology adoption profiles. The frequency of visits depends on your site's visibility and the technologies it employs, but most sites see periodic rather than constant crawling.

The crawling is part of SimilarTech's authorized data collection process for their market intelligence services, though website owners aren't individually asked for permission before being included in their analysis.

What is the purpose of SMTBot?

SMTBot serves as the data collection engine for SimilarTech's market intelligence platform. The information it gathers powers various business intelligence services, including:

• Technology adoption tracking across industries
• Competitive analysis reports showing what tools companies use
• Market share analysis for technology vendors
• Lead generation for technology providers (identifying potential customers)
• Industry trend monitoring and forecasting

The collected data is aggregated and analyzed to create market insights that help technology companies understand adoption patterns, identify sales opportunities, and benchmark against competitors. For website owners, being crawled means your technology choices contribute to industry statistics, but you receive no direct benefits unless you're a SimilarTech customer seeking competitive intelligence.

How do I block SMTBot?

You can control SMTBot's access to your website using the standard robots.txt file. SMTBot is designed to respect robots.txt directives, allowing you to block it completely or restrict access to specific sections of your site. To block SMTBot entirely, add these lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: SMTBot
Disallow: /

For partial blocking, you can specify particular directories:

User-agent: SMTBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

If you're concerned about server resources, implementing rate-limiting through your web server configuration can help manage SMTBot's impact without completely blocking it. Keep in mind that blocking SMTBot means your site's technology profile won't be included in SimilarTech's reports, which could reduce your visibility in certain market analyses. This might be desirable if you want to keep your technology stack private from competitors who use SimilarTech's services. If robots.txt isn't effective, you may need to implement IP-based blocking, though this requires regularly updating your block list as crawler IPs can change.