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Verification Bot

Understanding DarkStrata's domain ownership verification system

What is the DarkStrata Verification Bot?

The DarkStrata Verification Bot is an automated system that verifies domain ownership for customers using our HTTP file verification method. When you add a domain to DarkStrata for dark web monitoring and choose HTTP verification, our bot will periodically request a specific file from your web server to confirm you control the domain.

How to Identify Our Bot

Our verification bot identifies itself with the following HTTP headers:

User-Agent: DarkStrata-Verifier/1.0 (+https://darkstrata.io/en/docs/verification-bot)
From: [email protected]
X-DarkStrata-Purpose: domain-ownership-verification

In your server access logs, you'll see requests similar to:

GET /.well-known/darkstrata-verify.txt HTTP/1.1

Bot Behaviour

Request frequency: During initial verification, the bot checks every few minutes with increasing intervals. Once verified, it checks every 12 hours to ensure continued ownership.
Request method: GET requests only - the bot never sends POST, PUT, or other modifying requests.
Target path: Only requests /.well-known/darkstrata-verify.txt
Protocols: Attempts HTTPS first, falls back to HTTP if necessary.
Redirects: Follows up to 3 redirects, but only within the same domain for security.
Timeout: Requests timeout after 10 seconds.

IP Addresses

Our verification requests originate from our cloud infrastructure. If you need to whitelist our bot, please contact us at [email protected] for current IP ranges.

Troubleshooting

If you're having issues with HTTP verification:

Ensure the file exists at /.well-known/darkstrata-verify.txt
Verify the file contains exactly the token provided (no extra whitespace or characters)
Check that the file is publicly accessible (no authentication required)
Ensure your server isn't blocking our User-Agent
If using a WAF or CDN, ensure it allows requests to /.well-known/ paths

Alternatively, you can use DNS TXT record verification which doesn't require any web server configuration.

Contact

If you have questions about our verification bot or believe it's causing issues with your server, please contact us at [email protected].

API Documentation

For full API documentation, including authentication, endpoints, and integration guides, visit our developer documentation:

View API Documentation