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WARDBot

WARDBot tracks URL status codes, helping users monitor the availability of web pages they have added to the monitoring list.
WEBSPARKWARDBot
AI Crawler

What is WARDBot?

WARDBot is WEBSPARK's uptime-monitoring client for W.A.R.D. A W.A.R.D. user adds a URL to a monitoring list, and the bot requests that URL to check its HTTP status code and report downtime.

This is repeated endpoint monitoring, not open-web discovery. The official WARDBot page says the average interval between requests is ten minutes or longer. HTTP/2 is used by default, HTTP/1 can be configured, and request headers may vary for different resources.

Although this file retains the AI Crawler category from the directory, the published purpose contains no AI search, model training, or dataset collection. Allowing WARDBot does not make a page more likely to appear in an AI answer. A visit usually means that someone placed that URL on a W.A.R.D. monitoring list.

The documented user agent is Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; WARDBot/1.0; http://ward.ai/robot), with the stable token WARDBot. WEBSPARK also publishes .robot.ward.host as the reverse-DNS suffix for the service. Cloudflare's bot directory records the same user agent and links to the same operator page.

Robots behavior has a material source conflict. WEBSPARK says WARDBot strictly follows both allow and disallow rules and obeys Crawl-delay. Cloudflare's bot directory marks followsRobotsTxt as false, while this file leaves the metadata value unconfirmed. Treat robots support as disputed until requests to your own test path show which record matches current behavior.

There is no HTTP message-signature directory in Cloudflare's entry, and this page does not mark WARDBot traffic as IP verified. Reverse and then forward DNS can add confidence, but the user agent by itself remains easy to copy. An unexpected check can also be reported through the contact option on WEBSPARK's bot page.

Relevant for AI search

Is WARDBot relevant for AI search?

Yes. WARDBot collects pages for an AI product, so what it can crawl influences how AI systems describe your brand.

WARDBot fetches, indexes, or retrieves pages for an AI product, so the pages it can reach shape how that system describes your brand and products.

How to handle WARDBot

Keep the monitored health-check URL available when you or an authorized customer relies on W.A.R.D. To request a full-site stop, publish:

User-agent: WARDBot
Disallow: /

WEBSPARK also documents selective Allow and Disallow paths plus Crawl-delay in robots.txt. Its example uses Crawl-Delay: 10, where the value is seconds.

Cloudflare contradicts WEBSPARK and says the bot does not follow robots.txt, so inspect subsequent checks rather than assuming the rule took effect. Use an application or edge block if access must stop. For an unexpected monitor, verify the .robot.ward.host DNS chain and contact WEBSPARK with the affected URL.

Examples

  • An operations team allows WARDBot to request `/health` every ten minutes while disallowing checks against the rest of the application.
  • A hosting customer adds `Crawl-Delay: 30` after deciding that the default monitoring interval is too frequent for a resource-heavy page.
  • A site owner who never configured W.A.R.D. checks the source hostname, blocks the request at the edge, and reports the monitored URL through WEBSPARK's contact form.

Frequently asked questions about WARDBot

Learn about AI visibility monitoring and how Promptwatch helps your brand succeed in AI search.

WEBSPARK operates WARDBot for the W.A.R.D. URL-monitoring service.

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