Published on 2025-08-07T06:18:08Z

proximic

The proximic crawler is an intelligence-gathering bot operated by comScore, a leading market research and data analytics company. It systematically scans websites to collect data that powers comScore's digital measurement tools and market intelligence reports. The information it gathers helps comScore's clients understand market trends, audience behaviors, and content performance.

What is proximic?

The proximic bot is an intelligence-gathering web crawler for the analytics company comScore. It is part of comScore's digital measurement tools, systematically visiting websites to collect data for market intelligence. The crawler identifies itself in server logs with a user-agent string like Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; proximic; +https://www.comscore.com/Web-Crawler). It is a specialized commercial crawler that performs content analysis rather than general search indexing.

Why is the proximic bot crawling my site?

The proximic bot is visiting your website to gather intelligence for comScore's analytics services. It is collecting information that helps comScore provide market insights to its clients, which may include analyzing your content topics and brand mentions. The frequency of its visits depends on your site's popularity and relevance to comScore's research priorities. This crawling is part of a legitimate business operation and the bot follows standard web protocols.

What is the purpose of the proximic bot?

The purpose of the proximic bot is to support comScore's digital measurement and analytics services. The crawler collects data that helps comScore analyze market trends and audience behaviors. This information is then incorporated into comScore's analytics products. For website owners, the crawling contributes to market intelligence that may indirectly benefit them through an improved understanding of the digital landscape. The data collection is for business intelligence, not search indexing.

How do I block the proximic bot?

To prevent the proximic bot from accessing your website, you can add a specific disallow rule to your robots.txt file. This is the standard method for managing crawler access.

Add the following lines to your robots.txt file to block this bot:

User-agent: proximic
Disallow: /

How to verify the authenticity of the user-agent operated by comScore?

Reverse IP lookup technique

To verify user-agent authenticity, you can use host linux command two times with the IP address of the requester.
  1. > host IPAddressOfRequest
    This command returns the reverse lookup hostname (e.g., 4.4.8.8.in-addr.arpa.). 
  2. > host ReverseDNSFromTheOutputOfFirstRequest
If the output matches the original IP address and the domain is associated with a trusted operator (e.g., comScore), the user-agent can be considered legitimate.

IP list lookup technique

Some operators provide a public list of IP addresses used by their crawlers. This list can be cross-referenced to verify a user-agent's authenticity. However, both operators and website owners may find it challenging to maintain an up-to-date list, so use this method with caution and in conjunction with other verification techniques.