Glossary · Crawlers and access
visitor resolve
A check a site runs on a visitor that claims to be a known agent: is the request really from the agent its user agent names? The address is tested against the ranges the agent's operator publishes, and, where the request is signed, the signature is checked against the key the operator's directory proves it holds.
What visitor resolve means
A check a site runs on a visitor that claims to be a known agent: is the request really from the agent its user agent names? The address is tested against the ranges the agent's operator publishes, and, where the request is signed, the signature is checked against the key the operator's directory proves it holds. It can return verified, spoofed or unverifiable with the evidence for each; it cannot judge an agent whose operator publishes no ranges at all, so that outcome is reported as unverifiable rather than as forgery.
What visitor resolve can and cannot support
| It can support | It cannot support |
|---|---|
| A check a site runs on a visitor that claims to be a known agent: is the request really from the agent its user agent names? The address is tested against the ranges the agent's operator publishes, and, where the request is signed, the signature is checked against the key the operator's directory proves it holds. | It can return verified, spoofed or unverifiable with the evidence for each; it cannot judge an agent whose operator publishes no ranges at all, so that outcome is reported as unverifiable rather than as forgery. |
Where visitor resolve comes up on this site
- Eight weeks of AI agents on one site: who was really who, and 47,700 visits nobody can verifyVisitor Resolve takes an address and a user agent and answers verified, spoofed, unverifiable or not a known agent, against the ranges each operator publishes, one request or a hundred at a time.
Terms this definition uses
Related terms in Crawlers and access
Who is fetching, whether they are who they claim, and what your rules actually permit.
published crawler ranges · operator origin · signed agent · agent arrival · agent conduct record · agent traffic index · user-triggered fetch exemption · retrieval crawler · user-triggered fetch · verified crawler · forged crawler identity · unverifiable · robots.txt · user-agent group · AI opt-out · Content-Signal · crawl budget · cloaking · challenge page at 200 · uniform refusal · nonexistent-path control · blocked render resource · off-host redirect · homepage refused · FCrDNS · Crawler trap · Conditional request · ASN blocking · operator feed · residential proxy · Google-Extended · Google-Agent · GPTBot vs OAI-SearchBot · ClaudeBot vs Claude-User · PerplexityBot vs Perplexity-User · CCBot · Bytespider · agentic traffic · crawler classification · user agent · datacenter IP · vantage point · rate limit · delivery comparison · honeypot
Questions about visitor resolve
What is visitor resolve?
A check a site runs on a visitor that claims to be a known agent: is the request really from the agent its user agent names? The address is tested against the ranges the agent's operator publishes, and, where the request is signed, the signature is checked against the key the operator's directory proves it holds.
What does visitor resolve not show or guarantee?
It can return verified, spoofed or unverifiable with the evidence for each; it cannot judge an agent whose operator publishes no ranges at all, so that outcome is reported as unverifiable rather than as forgery.
Which area of the glossary does visitor resolve belong to?
Crawlers and access: Who is fetching, whether they are who they claim, and what your rules actually permit.
See it in the full glossary · 688 terms across 19 areas.