What the crawler is
M1StudioResearchBot is a small, polite web crawler run by M1 Studio (Samuel Morgan trading as M1 Studio, Chichester, West Sussex). It visits a sample of UK business websites to measure which common website features they have, so we can publish honest figures about how small businesses show up online.
It always says who it is. Its user agent is:
M1StudioResearchBot/1.0 (+https://m1studio.co.uk/research/)
What it looks at
Website features, counted as yes or no. For example: whether the site uses HTTPS, works on a phone, has an enquiry form, has a phone number people can tap to call, offers online booking, WhatsApp or a chat option, and uses structured data. The results are added up across hundreds of sites, and only totals are published. No individual business is named in the results.
What it never does
- It doesn’t collect personal data. Phone numbers and email addresses are checked for (is there one on the page?) but never stored.
- It never fills in forms, logs in, or tries to reach anything that isn’t public.
- It follows your robots.txt file.
- It visits slowly: at most 3 pages per site (usually the home page, a contact page and a legal or about page), with a pause of at least 1.5 seconds between requests.
- It doesn’t pretend to be a browser. If your site blocks it, that’s respected.
How to opt out
Either of these works, and you don’t have to give a reason:
- Email hello@m1studio.co.uk with your website address and it’s added to the opt-out list, so it isn’t visited again. Ask, and anything recorded from your site is deleted too.
- Or add this to your robots.txt file:
User-agent: M1StudioResearchBot
Disallow: /The study
The first study is a sample of active UK limited companies across 17 kinds of small business. The results aren’t published yet. When they are, this page will set out the method, the sample, what was measured and the findings, with the limits of the data stated plainly.
Until then, nothing from the crawl is published anywhere.
Questions
Email hello@m1studio.co.uk or call 01243 908096. You’ll hear back from Sammy Morgan, who runs M1 Studio. About M1 Studio.
