The short version
- LeadScouter-Audit runs only when a LeadScouter user audits one specific business website. It does not crawl the web.
- Per audit it makes at most 5 requests to a domain, one after another, at least one second apart, each with a 10-second timeout.
- It reads robots.txt first and skips the live test when robots.txt disallows LeadScouter-Audit.
- To block it, add “User-agent: LeadScouter-Audit” followed by “Disallow: /” to robots.txt.
What it checks
LeadScouter helps web designers and agencies prepare audits of local business websites. One part of the audit checks whether AI search tools can reach the website. To find out, the crawler reads robots.txt and then requests the homepage once for each of a few AI search crawlers, with a user agent that names both that crawler and LeadScouter-Audit:
- LeadScouter-Audit/1.0 (+https://leadscouter.app/bot)
- OAI-SearchBot (compatible; LeadScouter-Audit/1.0; +https://leadscouter.app/bot)
It does not pretend to be OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic or Microsoft. The other crawler's name is in the user agent only so that firewall rules matching on it answer the same way they would answer the real crawler.
What it requests
On one audit, at most:
- /robots.txt, once;
- the homepage, up to four times (once per tested AI search crawler);
- /llms.txt, only when the request limit allows it.
It does not submit forms, log in, follow links deeper into the site or run JavaScript. The live test result is kept for 7 days, so another audit of the same domain within that time does not repeat it.
How to block it
Add these two lines to robots.txt: “User-agent: LeadScouter-Audit” and “Disallow: /”. The crawler then reads only robots.txt and skips every other request.
You can also block user agents containing “LeadScouter-Audit” in a firewall, but LeadScouter then cannot tell your rule apart from a rule that refuses AI crawlers, so robots.txt is the better choice. Blocking LeadScouter-Audit has no effect on the real AI crawlers.
Contact
Questions, or a request to leave a domain out of audits: privacy@leadscouter.app.