ichiro User Agent: goo's Crawler & How to Block It

01 · Operator

Who operates ichiro

Company: NTT Resonant (goo)
Type: Search engine crawler
Official docs: help.goo.ne.jp

02 · Behavior

What ichiro does

ichiro crawled Japanese websites for goo's search index. A mobile variant used a DoCoMo phone user agent with 'ichiro/mobile goo'. goo's web search later switched to Google, so ichiro activity today is likely rare.

03 · Impact

Why ichiro matters for your site

If you allow it

Belongs to a known Japanese portal
Low crawl volume

If you block it

goo web search now uses Google
Little benefit for non-Japanese sites

04 · Allow

How to allow ichiro

robots.txt

User-agent: ichiro
Allow: /

Cloudflare

# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "ichiro")
Action:     Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules

# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.

WordPress

# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: ichiro
Allow: /

nginx

# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "ichiro") { return 403; }

Apache

# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ichiro [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

05 · Block

How to block ichiro

Start with robots.txt. If ichiro keeps showing up in your logs, block it at your CDN or web server.

robots.txt

User-agent: ichiro
Disallow: /

Cloudflare

# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "ichiro")
Action:     Block

WordPress

# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: ichiro
Disallow: /

nginx

# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "ichiro") {
    return 403;
}

Apache

# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ichiro [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>

06 · User agents

User agents we see for ichiro

The user agent published by the operator:

ichiro/3.0 (http://search.goo.ne.jp/option/use/sub4/sub4-1/)

07 · Verification

Is it really ichiro?

ichiro’s operator publishes no IP ranges or hostnames, so requests cannot be verified. Treat the user agent as a claim, and watch your logs for unusual request rates.

FAQ

Questions about ichiro

Is ichiro still active?

It is unclear. goo's web search switched to Google results, so its own crawler is likely little used.

Who operates ichiro?

It belongs to goo, the Japanese portal operated by NTT Resonant.

Should I block ichiro?

There is usually no need. If you want to, add a robots.txt group for the ichiro token.

ichiro is NTT Resonant (goo)’s search engine crawler