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ASF GitHub Bot commented on NUTCH-2803: --------------------------------------- sebastian-nagel commented on a change in pull request #539: URL: https://github.com/apache/nutch/pull/539#discussion_r453188606 ########## File path: conf/nutch-default.xml ########## @@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ </property> <property> - <name>http.robot.rules.whitelist</name> + <name>http.robot.rules.allowlist</name> Review comment: Just thinking about the naming of the property and whether `http.robotstxt.ignore` might be the better naming. Or is there is a more precise alternative? Let's first state what the property effects: If a host or domain is listed in the property - no robots.txt is fetched and an empty robots rules set is assumed for this host. Consequently, for this host: - all URLs are allowed (no URL is disallowed) - the Crawl-Delay is ignored - no sitemaps are detected In short, it has many more effects than "allow" any URL from the specified host. Also, robots rules in HTML metadata or HTTP headers (noindex, nofollow) are not affected and may still cause that pages from the specified host are not indexed. Also important to emphasize: robots.txt rules tell search engine crawlers what is (not) worth to index: exclude duplicates (same content with different view for print, re-sorted, re-formatted), skip over undesired content (private), etc. That's why it might be smarter to [follow the rules of a more privileged bot](http://www.thesempost.com/apples-applebot-follows-googlebots-instructions-in-robots-txt-files/). All these disadvantages and site-effects of ignoring the robots.txt should be documented, see [NUTCH-2808](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NUTCH-2808) and [NUTCH-2807](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NUTCH-2807). ---------------------------------------------------------------- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on to GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: us...@infra.apache.org > Rename property http.robot.rules.whitelist > ------------------------------------------ > > Key: NUTCH-2803 > URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NUTCH-2803 > Project: Nutch > Issue Type: Sub-task > Components: configuration, robots > Reporter: Sebastian Nagel > Assignee: Lewis John McGibbney > Priority: Major > Fix For: 1.18 > > > As part of NUTCH-2802 the property {{http.robot.rules.whitelist}} should be > renamed. > See the [definition of > http.robot.rules.whitelist|http://nutch.apache.org/apidocs/apidocs-1.17/resources/nutch-default.xml#http.robot.rules.whitelist]: > bq. Comma separated list of hostnames or IP addresses to ignore robot rules > parsing for. Use with care and only if you are explicitly allowed by the site > owner to ignore the site's robots.txt! -- This message was sent by Atlassian Jira (v8.3.4#803005)