Shortwave Image Fetcher
What is Shortwave Image Fetcher?
About
Shortwave Image Fetcher is a fetcher operated by Shortwave Communications Inc.. It's not currently known to be artificially intelligent or AI-related. If you think that's incorrect or can provide more detail about its purpose, please contact us. You can see how often Shortwave Image Fetcher visits your website by setting up Dark Visitors agent analytics.
Detail
| Operator | Shortwave Communications Inc. |
Type
Expected Behavior
Fetchers visit websites on-demand. They're normally dispatched by apps to present metadata about a link (e.g. the title and thumbnail image) to a user.
Agent Analytics
Visits to Your Website
Half of your traffic probably comes from artificial agents, and there are more of them every day. Track their activity with agent analytics.
Top Websites
Robots.txt
Should I Block Shortwave Image Fetcher?
Probably not. If you block a fetcher, it won't be able to fetch the metadata it needs to display a link preview. Fewer people will click on the link to your website without this.
How Do I Block Shortwave Image Fetcher?
You can block Shortwave Image Fetcher or limit its access by setting user agent token rules in your website's robots.txt. Set up Dark Visitors agent analytics to check whether it's actually following them.
| User Agent Token | Description |
|---|---|
Shortwave Image Fetcher |
Should match instances of Shortwave Image Fetcher |
# robots.txt
# This should block Shortwave Image Fetcher
User-agent: Shortwave Image Fetcher
Disallow: /
Recommended Solution
Instead of doing this manually, use automatic robots.txt to keep your rules updated with the latest AI scrapers, crawlers, and assistants automatically.
Global Bot & LLM Traffic
Fetchers
The overall volume of internet traffic coming from Fetchers
See Global Bot & LLM Traffic →