What is WARDBot?
Direct Answer: WARDBot is a monitoring bot operated by WEBSPARK that tracks URL status codes for users.
WARDBot is a monitoring bot that tracks URL addresses added by users to the monitoring list. It tracks URL status codes of web pages to keep users informed and notified about any downtimes of the added pages. The bot requests URLs at a frequency of 10 minutes or more and uses HTTP2 by default.
User-Agent Identification
The following user-agent strings identify WARDBot in your live traffic data:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; WARDBot/1.0; http://ward.ai/robot)
robots.txt Rules for WARDBot
Respects robots.txt: Yes
Use the following robots.txt rules to control WARDBot access:
# Block WARDBot
User-agent: WARDBot
Disallow: /
# Allow WARDBot
User-agent: WARDBot
Allow: /Robots.txt has limited effect on user-initiated bots
WARDBot is triggered by user actions within WEBSPARK's products. While WEBSPARK states it respects robots.txt, the bot operates differently from autonomous crawlers — it fetches specific URLs on demand rather than systematically spidering your site. Server-log monitoring is the only reliable way to verify what actually happens.
Need continuous verification across 500+ bots? Can AI See It automates this.
Crawl Behavior
Frequency:10 Minutes Or More
Request Pattern:Uses HTTP2 By Default, Can Also Use HTTP1
Official Documentation Quotes
"WARDBot tracks URL status codes, helping users monitor the availability of web pages they have added to the monitoring list"
"WARDBot strictly adheres to robots.txt rules, both disallow and allow"
Crawl Activity Index
Relative crawl activity for WARDBot over the past 28 days. Higher values indicate increased crawling intensity compared to the period baseline.
View recent activity data (last 7 days)
| Date | Activity Index |
|---|---|
| Mar 28, 2026 | 0.0 |
| Mar 29, 2026 | 0.8 |
| Mar 30, 2026 | 8.8 |
| Mar 31, 2026 | 1.3 |
| Apr 1, 2026 | 1.3 |
| Apr 2, 2026 | 0.4 |
| Apr 3, 2026 | 0.0 |
Source: Cloudflare Radar
Why track WARDBot traffic?
Measure what WEBSPARK gives back. WARDBot takes your content for AI training — but does WEBSPARK send any traffic in return through other products? Track whether the trade-off is worth it before deciding to block.
Understand what content is being collected for AI training. WARDBot crawls your site to gather data that may train AI models. Tracking its activity reveals which pages are selected — and which are skipped.
Make an informed block-or-allow decision. Blocking WARDBot prevents your content from being used in future model training. But first, measure the volume: how many pages does it fetch, how often, and does WEBSPARK send any referral traffic through other products?
Detect content harvesting patterns. If WARDBot is systematically crawling your highest-value content (product pages, proprietary research, premium articles), you may want to restrict access using robots.txt or server-side rules.
What does WARDBot crawling actually cost you?
AI training bots like WARDBot collect your content to improve future AI models. Unlike AI search bots, there's no direct referral pipeline — WARDBot doesn't cite sources or send traffic back to your site.
What you give
- Server resources for every crawl request
- Your content, expertise, and original research
- Data that improves a competing AI product
What you get back
- No direct referral traffic from WARDBot
- No attribution in AI model outputs
- No revenue share from model usage
This doesn't automatically mean you should block WARDBot. But you need to measure the real cost before deciding. WEBSPARK may send traffic through other products (WEBSPARK's AI products) — blocking the training bot might not affect referrals at all, or it might. Only log data tells you.
What Can AI See It measures for AI training bots
How many pages WARDBot fetches from your site
Which pages and sections WARDBot prioritizes
Do WEBSPARK's OTHER products send you traffic?
Does WARDBot actually respect your robots.txt?
How is this different from prompt testing tools? Prompt testing checks if AI mentions your brand in simulated queries. Can AI See It measures what actually happens: real crawls, real referrals, real conversions — from your live traffic data.
Read: Why live traffic monitoring beats prompt testing →Log Verification
To verify WARDBot traffic in your live traffic data:
- Search access logs for the user-agent strings listed above
- Check if the IP addresses match documented ranges (if provided by WEBSPARK)
- Verify the crawl pattern matches documented behavior
- Use reverse DNS lookup for additional verification if available
Note: Observed behavior in production environments may differ from official documentation. Live traffic monitoring provides the only reliable verification of actual bot behavior.
Undocumented Information
The following information is not officially documented for WARDBot:
- verified-ips
Measure your Crawl-to-Referral Ratio for WARDBot
See how much traffic WEBSPARK actually sends back to your site relative to how much content WARDBot takes.
- Connect WARDBot crawls in your logs with referral sessions in analytics
- Calculate your CRR — the metric prompt testing tools can't provide
- Make data-driven block/allow decisions for every AI bot
Measure business impact from WARDBot
The question isn't just whether to block WARDBot — it's what you lose or gain from its crawling activity.
- Crawl volume: how many pages WARDBot collects from your site
- Content value: which content categories are targeted most
- Cross-platform CRR: does WEBSPARK send traffic through other products?
- Referral tracking: WARDBot takes — measure what WEBSPARK gives back. Track actual visits arriving from WEBSPARK's products to your site.
Based on your live traffic data and analytics — not synthetic prompt tests.
Official Documentation
View Official WARDBot Documentation →
Information sourced from official documentation. Content generated with AI assistance.