Semalt Expert: What is Darodar?

23.05.2018

Semalt Expert: What is Darodar?

Before reading this article, check your website traf c logs in Google Analytics. Look at the top referrers and see if you can spot any entry with 'Darodar.com''. If it is present, you are probably asking yourself, "What is Darodar?"

What is Darodar?

The Darodar website shows that it is a company offering SEO services. Artem Abgarian, the Semalt Senior Customer Success Manager, says that the origin of Darodar is not precisely known. Researchers know for sure that Darodar uses spiders to generate traf c, ignores the robots.txt derivatives, and it does not offer any bene ts.

Darodar has positioned itself where it currently is by using these indexing bots to draw attention. They make sure to crawl as many websites as possible and leave behind a trace in the traf c reports for curious admins to nd.

Interested in knowing where the traf c comes from, the admins visit the Darodar website where they see the SEO value proposition and an offer to sign up with them. Nobody knows if the company is legitimate or not. The fact that it uses brute force to crawl websites without considering the rules contained in the robots.txt raises a lot of

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concern. However, they also claim that they can delist anyone that requests removal from their index. The truth of this statement is yet to be con rmed.

Drawbacks of Darodar Indexing your Site 1. Skewed Data Analytics One of the implications of Darodar visiting a site is that is gets recorded in the traf c logs. The problem with this is that it pushes off a valid referral source of the list and it is not easy to explain to an executive team why Darodar appears on the analytics report.

Darodar also impacts the site's bounce rate. Since the Darodar bots visit a single page at a time, their actions skew the bounce rates to a higher number.

Data analytics and tracking applications can help lter out unwanted traf c. You can lter out Darodar from Google Analytics. By applying a lter, Darodar will no longer appear in your reports. Go to Admin and then select the lter tool you want to use under the view/pro le.

2. Bandwidth Cost When the Darodar crawler makes requests to the site, data ows back and forth from the server. It could become costly especially if the server runs on a limited bandwidth. The large volumes of traf c they Darodar generates could add up very fast.

The best way to block Darodar is to use the robots.txt which it typically ignores. Also, it is dif cult to block the domain using the htaccess directives or similar approaches since it uses several locations to generate traf c. The other option is to implement a block at the server level which could have severe implications on server performance and therefore not recommended.

Where do you go from here?

If Darodar does not appear in the traf c logs, just ignore them for now. If you notice a spike in bandwidth charges or you merely wish to eliminate them from your reports, ask to be delisted from indexing. If that does not work, then apply some server-based rules which deny access from any activity from Darodar.com.

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