01 · Operator
Who operates hankbot
- Company
- hank.parts S. L.
- Type
- Other bot
- Official docs
- hank.parts
02 · Behavior
What hankbot does
When a user looks for a part, hankbot visits the matching product pages. It checks whether the listing is still active and reads the current price. It does not crawl whole sites. hank then links the buyer to the shop.
03 · Impact
Why hankbot matters for your site
If you allow it
- Your parts listings can reach buyers on hank.parts
- Only single product pages are fetched, at most 1 request per second
- Requests are signed and can be verified
If you block it
- You may not want your prices checked by a third-party marketplace
- It brings traffic only if you sell car or motorcycle parts
04 · Allow
How to allow hankbot
robots.txt
User-agent: hankbot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "hankbot")
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: hankbot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "hankbot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} hankbot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block hankbot
hankbot follows robots.txt, so one rule is enough. Use a server or CDN rule only to stop spoofed copies.
robots.txt
User-agent: hankbot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "hankbot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: hankbot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "hankbot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} hankbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for hankbot
The user agent published by the operator:
hankbot/1.0 (+https://hank.parts/hankbot)07 · Verification
Is it really hankbot?
hankbot’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 hankbot
What is hankbot?
hankbot is the crawler of hank.parts. It checks car and motorcycle part listings for availability and current price.
Does hankbot respect robots.txt?
Yes. It obeys rules for hankbot and for User-agent: *, honours Crawl-delay and treats a 401 or 403 on robots.txt as a refusal.
How can I verify hankbot?
Requests are signed with Web Bot Auth (RFC 9421). Keys are at hank.parts/.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory. Cloudflare lists hankbot as verified.
Last updated Oct 19, 2026