What Is HeadlessChrome?
Headless Chrome is a tool provided by Google's open source Chromium project. It gives other software the ability to render web pages in full detail. One of the most common use cases is enabling AI agents to browse the internet through libraries like Playwright and Puppeteer. You can see how often HeadlessChrome visits your website by setting up Dark Visitors Agent Analytics.
Agent Type
Expected Behavior
The behavior of headless agents generally depends who is using them and what exactly they're using them for. Patterns could vary significantly depending whether the operator is human-guided software (e.g. performance testing), or an autonomous AI agent acting like a human.
Detail
| Last Updated | 11 hours ago |
Top Website Robots.txts
Country of Origin
Top Website Blocking Trend Over Time
The percentage of the world's top 1000 websites who are blocking HeadlessChrome
Overall Headless Agent Traffic
The percentage of all internet traffic coming from headless agents
Top Visited Website Categories
Robots.txt
In this example, all pages are blocked. You can customize which pages are off-limits by swapping out / for a different disallowed path.
User-agent: HeadlessChrome # https://https://darkvisitors.com/agents/headlesschrome
Disallow: /Frequently Asked Questions About HeadlessChrome
Should I Block HeadlessChrome?
Evaluate case-by-case. Headless browsers have diverse uses from legitimate testing to automated attacks. Monitor their behavior and block them if they consume excessive resources, attempt unauthorized actions, or show malicious patterns.
How Do I Block HeadlessChrome?
If you want to, you can block or limit HeadlessChrome's access by configuring user agent token rules in your robots.txt file. The best way to do this is using Automatic Robots.txt, which blocks all agents of this type and updates continuously as new agents are released. While the vast majority of agents operated by reputable companies honor these robots.txt directives, bad actors may choose to ignore them entirely. In that case, you'll need to implement alternative blocking methods such as firewall rules or server-level restrictions. You can verify whether HeadlessChrome is respecting your rules by setting up Agent Analytics to monitor its visits to your website.
Will Blocking HeadlessChrome Hurt My SEO?
The SEO impact of blocking headless agents depends on their specific use case. If they're used for legitimate testing or monitoring that helps maintain site quality, blocking could indirectly hurt SEO. However, malicious headless agents might harm your site, so blocking them could protect your search rankings.
Does HeadlessChrome Access Private Content?
Headless agents can access whatever content their controlling software directs them to, which could include both public and private content depending on their configuration. If provided with authentication credentials or authorized access, they can interact with private systems just like a human user would. Their scope is entirely dependent on their programming and permissions.
How Can I Tell if HeadlessChrome Is Visiting My Website?
Setting up Agent Analytics will give you realtime visibility into HeadlessChrome visiting your website, along with hundreds of other AI agents, crawlers, and scrapers. This will also let you measure human traffic to your website coming from AI search and chat LLM platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Why Is HeadlessChrome Visiting My Website?
HeadlessChrome accessed your site for purposes that depend on how it's being used. It may have been directed to your site for testing, automation tasks, or by an AI system that identified your content as relevant to its objectives. The specific reason varies based on who is controlling it and what they're trying to accomplish.
How Can I Authenticate Visits From HeadlessChrome?
Agent Analytics authenticates agent visits from many agents, letting you know whether each one was actually from that agent, or spoofed by a bad actor. This helps you identify suspicious traffic patterns and make informed decisions about blocking or allowing specific user agents.