The SimplificoResearch crawler

If you found SimplificoResearch in your website logs, this page explains what it is and how to ask it to stay away.

What it is for

Simplifico studies how South African small business websites handle privacy, for example whether they link a privacy notice where they collect contact details. We publish the findings as totals only, such as "6 in 10 websites". We never name a business, and we never contact the businesses we study because of it.

What it reads

1. Your robots.txt file, first, every time.
2. Your homepage, plus your contact page and privacy notice if your homepage links to them. That is at most four pages per visit.

It never fills in or submits a form, never logs in, and never reads pages your robots.txt asks it to skip. It does not keep copies of your pages, or any names, email addresses or phone numbers that appear on them. It only records what it observed, for example "privacy notice linked: yes".

How to ask it not to visit

Add these lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: SimplificoResearch
Disallow: /

Or email duane@simplifico.xyz with your website address, and we will remove it from our study and its results.

Want to check your own website?

The free POPIA Readiness Check runs a similar check on any website and explains how to fix each gap.