User-agent string: NorthernSignalGrowthBot/1.0 (+https://northernsignal.ca/bot)
NorthernSignalGrowthBot/1.0 fetches individual pages that Northern Signal has cited in its newsletter, to verify that what we published about a source is accurate and current. It is not a search-indexing crawler and it does not discover pages on its own.
What it does
- Fetches only URLs already cited in a published issue of Northern Signal.
- Requests robots.txt first and obeys it, including any
Crawl-delayyou declare. - Waits at least 3 seconds between requests to the same host, and backs off further on a
429orRetry-After. - Stops asking a host that has refused it repeatedly.
- Reads the byline, publication date, and article text to check our citation, then stores a compressed snapshot as an audit record.
What it does not do
- Bypass paywalls, logins, or bot protection. A page that declines is recorded as declined and sent to a human — not retried under a different identity.
- Republish your content. Snapshots are internal evidence that our citation was accurate, not a copy for public reuse.
- Train models on your content.
If you'd rather we didn't
Disallow it in robots.txt and it will stop:
User-agent: NorthernSignalGrowthBot
Disallow: /Or email us with your domain and we'll exclude it directly, typically within a few business days.