Blackhole for Bad Bots vs BotBlocker Security – Firewall & Bot Protection

✨ Trap bad bots in a virtual black hole Important: Do NOT use this plugin on sites with caching. Learn more » 👾 Bye bye bad bots.. Bad bots are the worst. They do all sorts of nasty stuff and waste server resources. The Blackhole plugin helps to stop bad bots and save precious resources for legit visitors. 👾 How does it work? First the plugin adds a hidden trigger link to the footer of your pages. You then add a line to your robots.txt file that forbids all bots from following the hidden link. Bots that then ignore or disobey your robots rules will crawl the link and fall into the trap. Once trapped, bad bots are denied further access to your WordPress site. I call it the “one-strike” rule: bots have one chance to obey your site’s robots.txt rule. Failure to comply results in immediate banishment. The best part is that the Blackhole only affects bad bots: human users never see the hidden link, and good bots obey the robots rules in the first place. Win-win! 🙂 ✨ Add a blackhole trap to help stop bad bots Important: Do NOT use this plugin on sites with caching. Learn more » 👾 Features Easy to set up Squeaky clean code Focused and modular Lightweight, fast and flexible Built with the WordPress API Works with other security plugins Easy to reset the list of bad bots Easy to delete any bot from the list Regularly updated and “future proof” Blackhole link includes “nofollow” attribute Plugin options configurable via settings screen Works silently behind the scenes to protect your site Whitelists all major search engines to never block Focused on flexibility, performance, and security Email alerts with WHOIS lookup for blocked bots Complete inline documentation via the Help tab Provides setting to whitelist any IP addresses Customize the message displayed to bad bots 😉 One-click restore the plugin default options Does NOT use or require any .htaccess rules Blackhole for Bad Bots protects your site against bad bots, spammers, scrapers, scanners, and other automated threats. ✨ Not using WordPress? Check out the standalone PHP version of Blackhole! 👾 Whitelist By default, this plugin does NOT block any of the major search engines (user agents): AOL.com Baidu Bingbot/MSN DuckDuckGo Googlebot Teoma Yahoo! Yandex These search engines (and all of their myriad variations) are whitelisted via user agent. So are a bunch of other “useful” bots. They always are allowed full access to your site, even if they disobey your robots.txt rules. This list can be customized in the plugin settings. For a complete list of whitelisted bots, visit the Help tab in the plugin settings (under “Whitelist Settings”). ✨ Check out Blackhole Pro and level up with advanced features! 👾 Exclusive Pro Features Option to disable for logged-in users Threshold control (number of allowed hits) Custom email alerts Custom messages for blocked bots Custom redirect for blocked bots Custom blackhole trigger links Complete inline documentation Block bots based on user agent Block bots based on IP address Whitelist/allow bots by user agent Whitelist/allow bots by IP address Redirect whitelisted bots Set custom HTTP Status Code Full-featured Bad Bot Log with paging, sorting, and field search Manually add bad bots to the Bad Bot Log Geo/IP location lookups for each bad bot Logs number of blocked hits for each bot ..plus everything the free version can do and more. ✨ Learn more and get Blackhole Pro » 👾 Privacy User Data: This plugin automatically blocks bad bots. When bad bots fall into the trap, their IP address, user agent, and other request data are stored in the WP database. No other user data is collected by this plugin. At any time, the administrator may delete all saved data via the plugin settings. Services: This plugin does not connect to any third-party locations or services. Cookies: This plugin does not set any cookies. Credit: Header Image Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech. Blackhole for Bad Bots is developed and maintained by Jeff Starr, 15-year WordPress developer and book author. 👾 Support development I develop and maintain this free plugin with love for the WordPress community. To show support, you can make a donation or purchase one of my books: The Tao of WordPress Digging into WordPress .htaccess made easy WordPress Themes In Depth Wizard’s SQL Recipes for WordPress And/or purchase one of my premium WordPress plugins: BBQ Pro – Blazing fast WordPress firewall Blackhole Pro – Automatically block bad bots Banhammer Pro – Monitor traffic and ban the bad guys GA Google Analytics Pro – Connect WordPress to Google Analytics Head Meta Pro – Ultimate Meta Tags for WordPress REST Pro Tools – Awesome tools for managing the WP REST API Simple Ajax Chat Pro – Unlimited chat rooms USP Pro – Unlimited front-end forms Links, tweets and likes also appreciated. Thank you! 🙂

BotBlocker Security blocks 99% of automated attacks before WordPress even loads. No bloat, no slowdowns, no monthly fees for core protection. If your site is hit by login brute force, spam comments, fake Googlebots, content scrapers, or XML-RPC floods, you are not alone: bots generate over 47% of all web traffic. Most security plugins react after WordPress boots, wasting CPU and memory on every bad request. BotBlocker stops them at the door. Why site owners switch to BotBlocker Faster than the competition. Runs on early init through three interception layers, before themes and plugins load. Server load drops during attacks instead of spiking. Smarter CAPTCHA. 9 modes including Silent Auto-Verify – zero clicks for humans, hard wall for bots. Proprietary CAPTCHAs defeat AI-based solvers that crack reCAPTCHA for $2-3 per 1 000. Honest free version. Full firewall, all 9 CAPTCHA modes, full 2FA, full logging, full Multisite support. No nag screens, no crippled features. Privacy-first. No visitor data leaves your server. GDPR and CCPA compliant out of the box. Works with everything. Cloudflare, WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, WooCommerce, Elementor, multisite, IPv6, PHP 7.4 to 8.5. 🛡️ Core Firewall (Free) Three-Layer Architecture – intercepts traffic at wp-config.php (before WordPress), MU-plugin phase, and main shield. The first layer blocks known threats without loading WordPress at all, saving 30-100ms and 5-20MB RAM per blocked request. Web Application Firewall (WAF) with real-time rule updates via the BotBlocker Threat Defense Feed 2 899 User-Agent signatures – largest blacklist among WordPress plugins – covering Scrapy, Selenium, Puppeteer, PhantomJS, curl, wget, Python, Java, Perl, and SQL injection tools Brute force protection with progressive lockouts – 5 attempts per 15 minutes, escalating bans for repeat offenders Anti-spam for comments, registration, contact forms – spammers blocked before they connect XML-RPC and REST API locked down by default with allowlist for trusted services Fake crawler detection via FCrDNS (dual-direction DNS verification), ASN tokens, and published IP ranges – 95% effective, impossible to spoof without controlling the provider’s DNS zone LLM / AI crawler management – allow or block GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Bytespider via CIDR-verified IP ranges. Trusted crawlers verified, impersonators blocked. Country, ASN, IP range, User-Agent, Referer blocking rules with instant enforcement Cloudflare-aware real-IP resolution and origin bypass protection Full IPv6 support – separate tables and logic for IPv4 and IPv6, every feature works with both Live traffic monitor with attack map, country, ASN, device, browser, and exact block reason for every request Built-in caching via Redis and Memcached – free, auto-disable on connection failure 🔒 Login Security & 2FA (Free) Two-Factor Authentication compatible with Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, Bitwarden – TOTP standard with 10 backup codes 9 CAPTCHA modes: Silent Auto-Verify, Single Button, Color CAPTCHA, Images CAPTCHA, Shapes CAPTCHA (60fps Canvas), Digits CAPTCHA, Hold Button CAPTCHA, plus Google reCAPTCHA v2 and v3 Hybrid Mode – combine any internal CAPTCHA with reCAPTCHA v3 for two-layer invisible defense Hide login URL (PRO) Configurable lockout durations with escalation for repeat offenders – failed CAPTCHA triggers short ban, repeated failure triggers 24-hour ban 💳 Payment Gateway Bypass (Free) Auto-detects 25+ e-commerce platforms (WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, SureCart, MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, Give, Dokan, CartFlows, FunnelKit, and more) and 150+ payment providers (Stripe, PayPal, Mollie, Adyen, Braintree, Square, Razorpay, Klarna, Paddle, Authorize.Net, 2Checkout, YooKassa, LiqPay, and more). Webhooks, IPN callbacks, and payment notifications never get blocked. Four detection layers ensure zero false positives on payment traffic. 📊 Visibility & Control (Free) Visual dashboard with attack map, top offenders, blocked-vs-allowed ratio, world traffic map Detailed event log with IP, country, ASN, User-Agent, and exact block reason – 54 unique event codes Health Score gauge – 42 parameters across 3 categories, 5 security levels from Critical to Secure 3 security presets – Light, Strong, Full – one-click configuration Setup Wizard – 8 steps from welcome to test attack, setup in under 5 minutes 8 interface languages – English, Deutsch, Español, Français, Polski, Русский, Українська + POT template Configurable retention with timezone and DST awareness Clean uninstall – drops all 16 tables, removes 40+ options, clears cron hooks. Zero leftover data. 🚀 PRO Adds (Premium / Pro / Ultimate) Real-time cloud threat intelligence cross-checked against global databases – 5M+ attack IPs, hundreds of thousands of bot signatures, updated daily Zero-day behavioral and heuristic detection – catches unknown attack patterns before signatures exist VPN, Tor, proxy, ASN, and hosting reputation checks Early Init Mode – filtering before WordPress Core loads, maximum resource savings during attacks Hide Login URL addon – custom admin URL, hardened wp-login.php protection Security Headers addon – HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options, Permissions-Policy, Referrer-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options Speed Up WordPress addon – 14 frontend and server optimizations Malware Scanner addon – 25 patterns scanning files + 7 database tables, detects webshells, eval injections, base64-obfuscated code hidden in wp_options and post_content Priority support – 24-hour response time Four plans to match your traffic: Premium ($12/month, 25k cloud checks), Pro ($50/month, 100k cloud checks), Ultimate ($100/month, 250k cloud checks + emergency 24h support). Annual billing includes 1 month free. 30-day refund policy. Licensed per domain, billed securely via Freemius. Compare plans → ⚡ Performance & Compatibility Zero database queries for returning visitors – 9 runtime PHP files with SHA-256 integrity signatures, loaded via include Measured overhead: +3-15ms TTFB for cached visitors, +50-200ms for first-time PTR lookups, +2-4MB memory Redis and Memcached support – free, auto-disables gracefully on connection failure Cache plugin compatibility – automatic DONOTCACHEPAGE and Cache-Control: no-store on verification pages. Works with WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, Hummingbird, WP Fastest Cache, Cache Enabler CDN and WAF compatibility – Cloudflare, Sucuri, Incapsula, AWS CloudFront, Fastly, KeyCDN, StackPath. Multi-header real-IP resolution (CF-Connecting-IP, X-Forwarded-For, X-Real-IP) DDoS Protection Compatibility – automatic detection of JS-challenges from DDoS-Guard, Stormwall, Qrator. HMAC-signed AJAX responses, Circuit Breaker with automatic retry and backoff. BotBlocker is the only WordPress plugin that works correctly behind aggressive DDoS protection without manual configuration. Multisite Support – network activation, per-site data, per-site cleanup. Free on all plans. PHP 7.4 – 8.5 – tested across 7 PHP versions. WordPress 5.0 – 7.0+. Linux and Windows. GDPR and CCPA compliant – no PII collected, technical parameters only, Legitimate Interest basis (Art. 6(1)(f)) 🤝 Trusted by 3 000+ active installations Translated into 8 languages Tested up to WordPress 7.0 and PHP 8.5 Developed and maintained by GLOBUS.studio “Replaced two security plugins and a CAPTCHA plugin with one. Site is faster and the spam stopped overnight.” – WordPress.org user Privacy BotBlocker Security does not collect or process personal data of your visitors. All cloud analysis is performed on technical parameters only (IP, headers, User-Agent). No personally identifiable information is collected, stored, or transmitted to any external service. Support and Documentation Product site: https://botblocker.top/products/ Pricing and PRO plans: https://botblocker.top/pricing/ Documentation: https://botblocker.top/docs/ Contact/support: https://botblocker.top/contacts/ Community: https://botblocker.top/community/ License This plugin is licensed under the GPLv2 or later. See LICENSE.txt for details. Credits & Authors BotBlocker Security is developed and maintained by GLOBUS.studio. Concept, architecture & code – Yevhen Leonidov: https://leonidov.dev/ Code, code review – Andrii Lukashevych Code, translations – Aleksandr Kinakh BotBlocker Security – The first line of defense for your WordPress site.