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

um-LN

um-LN is a web crawler from Ubermetrics Technologies, a European media monitoring and brand intelligence company. Its purpose is to scan public, text-based content from websites to gather data for its clients, who use the service for brand monitoring, market trend analysis, and competitive intelligence. Its visits are driven by client monitoring needs.

What is um-LN?

um-LN is a web crawler for the European media monitoring company Ubermetrics Technologies. It is part of their content intelligence platform, systematically visiting websites to collect and analyze text-based content. The bot identifies itself in server logs with a user-agent string like Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; um-LN/1.0; ...). The crawler focuses primarily on textual content, such as news articles and blog posts, rather than images or videos.

Why is um-LN crawling my site?

um-LN is crawling your site to gather information for Ubermetrics' clients, who are monitoring for brand mentions, industry news, or market trends. The crawler targets text-based content that may be relevant to these monitoring activities. The frequency of visits depends on the priority level of your site within Ubermetrics' client campaigns. This crawling is generally considered authorized as it is part of a commercial service and follows standard web protocols.

What is the purpose of um-LN?

The purpose of um-LN is to support Ubermetrics' content intelligence platform by collecting data for brand monitoring and media analysis. The data it gathers helps clients track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and measure public sentiment. The insights from this data help companies make informed marketing and business decisions. For website owners, there is no direct benefit from the crawler's activity, though your content may gain visibility with the companies that use Ubermetrics' services.

How do I block um-LN?

To prevent um-LN from accessing your website, you can add a specific disallow rule to your robots.txt file. This is the standard method for managing access for web crawlers.

To block this bot, add the following lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: um-LN
Disallow: /

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

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., Ubermetrics), 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.