Methodology
How we rate counties
Every U.S. county's online property-records portal, checked for four low-cost protections against automated harvesting. 3,144 counties, audit as of 2026-08-24.
What we check
The audit is deliberately narrow. It looks only at what a county or its vendor publishes to the open web, because that is what a scraper sees first. It does not test whether a protection can be defeated, and it does not access any record.
robots.txt
Does the portal publish a robots.txt, and does it disallow automated clients from the search and record paths? A permissive file that only blocks a login page does not count.
Terms of use
Does the portal or its vendor publish terms, and do they prohibit automated access, scraping, or bulk download?
Bot challenge
Is there a technical barrier in front of search: Cloudflare bot detection, reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, Imperva, a JavaScript gate, or rate limiting?
Owner notification
Can a property owner sign up to be alerted when a document is recorded against their property, the model Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, and Utah use?
What each status means
- Protected
- The portal has a robots.txt that disallows automated access, or its vendor prohibits automated harvesting in the terms of use, or recording is centralized at a state agency that does.
- Partially Protected
- A bot challenge (Cloudflare, reCAPTCHA, or similar) or a partial robots.txt deters casual bulk access, but a determined actor can bypass it and nothing prohibits automation in writing.
- Unprotected
- We found an online portal with no restriction on automated access in its robots.txt or terms of use, and no bot challenge.
- Uncertain
- The portal runs on vendor software whose automation policy we have not yet been able to confirm. The county may be protected by contract terms we cannot see.
- Inconclusive
- We found a portal but could not reach or analyze it at the time of the scan. We will retry on the next pass.
- Not Yet Audited
- No online property-records portal was identified for this county. If one exists, tell us the URL and we will audit it.
"At least partial protection", the figure on the state and vendor pages, counts protected plus partially protected counties.
Vendors
Where a portal runs on recognizable vendor software we record the vendor, because the vendor sets the defaults for every county it serves. We currently identify 9 vendors. A county with no vendor listed either has no portal we could find or runs a custom or unrecognized system. See the vendor scorecards.
How often we re-audit
The full data set is re-run periodically, and every county page shows the date of its own last check. When a county tells us it has changed something, we re-audit that county on request rather than waiting for the next pass.
Disputing a rating
If you work for a county and believe your rating is wrong, incomplete, or out of date, contact us with the county name and, if you have it, the portal URL and what changed. We re-check, update the page, and note the change. We would rather correct a rating than defend one.
The same goes for a portal we have not found: send the URL and we will add it to the next audit. Questions about the method itself go to info@publicrecordssafety.com.
Limits
- A published rule is not an enforced rule. A robots.txt only stops scrapers that choose to honor it.
- "Not checked" or "Unknown" on a county page means the audit could not complete that check, not that the protection is absent.
- Vendor policies are read from public documents. Contract terms between a county and its vendor are not visible to us.
- States that record at the state or town level (Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland's assessments, and the New England town-clerk states) are rated on the agency that actually holds the records.
Take action for your county
Find out how your county records office stacks up, and what it takes to close the gap. It only takes a few minutes to look up your county and reach out.
Questions? Email info@publicrecordssafety.com