# Public preview

> What the CheckboxPreview crawler fetches from a website before its owner verifies the domain, and the limits that keep it polite.

User agent: `CheckboxPreview/1.0 (+https://checkbox.site/docs/preview)`. robots.txt product token: `CheckboxPreview`.

When someone adds a website to Checkbox, Checkbox takes one polite look at its **public pages** so the owner sees a
first result before verifying the domain. It is a crawler-like visit, not a test of the checkout:

- **What it fetches.** `robots.txt`, the home page, one favicon, the pricing or plans page the home page links to (or
  `/pricing` and `/plans` when there is no link), and the Terms, Privacy and Refund pages linked from those pages. At
  most 6 pages, plain `GET` requests, no query strings, HTML only (1 MB, 10 seconds each), at least one second apart.
- **What it never does.** No browser and no JavaScript, no forms, no clicks on checkout or payment pages, no sign-ups,
  no emails, no test subscriptions, no monitoring, no screenshots. Links to other websites are not followed, and a
  redirect to another domain is refused before it is requested.
- **How often.** At most once per registrable domain per day, whoever asks: the result is shared, so many accounts
  adding the same website cannot make Checkbox visit it more often. A deployment-wide daily cap and a per-account cap
  apply on top.
- **robots.txt.** Respected for `CheckboxPreview` (else `*`). If robots.txt cannot be fetched (server error or
  network error), nothing else is fetched.

To keep it out entirely:

```text
User-agent: CheckboxPreview
Disallow: /
```

The preview result is labeled "Preview — public pages only" wherever it appears. It is never part of a site's score,
evidence, certificate or alerts. Everything that needs a real shopper — the sign-up and cancellation flows, emails,
lifecycle tests and monitoring — runs only after the site owner [verifies the domain](https://checkbox.site/docs/concepts/activation).

Questions or a request to stop: email support@checkbox.site.