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  4. How do I complete a reverse DNS check when completing log file analysis?

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How do I complete a reverse DNS check when completing log file analysis?

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  • daniel-brooks
    daniel-brooks Subscriber last edited by Aug 2, 2018, 6:23 AM

    I'm doing some log file analysis and need to run a reverse DNS check to ensure that I'm analysing logs from Google and not any imposters. Is there a command I can use in terminal to do this?

    If not, whats the best way to verify Googlebot?

    Thanks

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • TylerReardon
      TylerReardon @daniel-brooks last edited by Aug 3, 2018, 11:44 PM Aug 3, 2018, 11:44 PM

      That's awesome! Glad to know there's a bulk tool out there!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • daniel-brooks
        daniel-brooks Subscriber @TylerReardon last edited by Aug 3, 2018, 4:34 AM Aug 3, 2018, 4:34 AM

        Hi Tyler,

        Thanks for your reply. I managed to get down to 98 unique IPs and ran a bulk reverse DNS/IP Look-up using this tool:

        https://www.infobyip.com/ipbulklookup.php

        Thanks for your help though!

        TylerReardon 1 Reply Last reply Aug 3, 2018, 11:44 PM Reply Quote 2
        • TylerReardon
          TylerReardon last edited by Aug 3, 2018, 4:35 AM Aug 2, 2018, 9:15 PM

          Hey Daniel,

          If you want to verify that a user-agent is actually Googlebot, you'll want to use a log file analysis tool to aggregate all of the IP addresses associated with Googlebot. Once you have a list of IP addresses, you can perform a reverse DNS lookup to verify whether the IP addresses are actually associated with Googlebot or not.

          If you're on windows/pc these steps should work:
          https://www.serverintellect.com/support/dns/reverse-dns/

          If you're on mac try these steps:
          1. open Terminal
          2. type "host" + ip address
           for example: "host 66.249.66.1"
          3. hit enter
          4. view results. For example: "1.66.249.66.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer crawl-66-249-66-1.googlebot.com"

          If the results are from Google.com or Googlebot.com, you can be sure it's actually Google crawling your site. Unfortunately, I don't know of any faster ways to achieve these results. I'm sure there's a tool out there, I just haven't found it yet.

          This might also be a good resource for you: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/80553?hl=en

          Good luck!
          -Tyler

          daniel-brooks 1 Reply Last reply Aug 3, 2018, 4:34 AM Reply Quote 2
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