Our bot: LitteroBot

Spotted LitteroBot in your site's logs? Here's exactly what it does.

Littero is a directory of literary websites. Our bot only visits sites already listed in the directory: it doesn't crawl the web at random and doesn't follow links from page to page.

Its identity

Our link checks identify themselves with this User-Agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; LitteroBot/1.0; +https://littero.com/bot)

What it does

• Periodically checks that the link responds (HTTP status), to remove sites that have become unreachable from the directory.
• Takes a screenshot of the homepage to illustrate the listing, at most once a quarter. That screenshot is taken by an ordinary browser, so the page renders as it does for your visitors.
• For publishers, agents and contests: reads the text of the homepage and, if there is one, of the page that explains how to submit work or enter, at most once every two months. We draw a few facts from it (genres published, how to submit, terms) to describe the listing accurately. That text is not republished.

How often

At most one automated visit per site per day, across all our listings: the link check, the screenshot and the text reading never fall on the same day. We don't copy your whole site or reload your pages repeatedly.

What it doesn't do

• No recursive crawling: beyond the homepage, we open at most one page, the one that explains how to submit work or enter.
• No collection of emails or personal data.
• No copied content: the directory listing is written on our end.

Prevent the bot from visiting your site

Two options to choose from:

• Refuse the LitteroBot User-Agent at your server or firewall (a 403 response is enough): after three consecutive refusals, the listing is removed from the directory and the visits stop.
• Or contact us via our contact page: we'll remove your site from the directory and stop all visits. This is the safest way, as it also takes you out of the public directory.

A question, an issue?

If the bot misbehaves (too many requests, visiting a page it shouldn't), report it via our contact page and we'll fix it. We're committed to staying a well-behaved bot.