Bot Traffic Shield – Block Bad Bots and Stop AI Bots Crawlers vs ShieldUp – Bad Bots, Scrapers, Attackers

In the age of AI, your valuable website content is a prime target for data crawlers from large tech companies. Bot Traffic Shield is your first line of defense against content theft and unauthorized scraping. This lightweight yet powerful plugin identifies and blocks a wide range of AI bots and data scrapers before they can access and harvest your content, protecting your intellectual property while reducing unnecessary server load. 🛡️ Why You Need Bot Traffic Shield Protect Your Content – Stop AI companies from training their models on your hard work Reduce Server Load – Block unwanted traffic that wastes your bandwidth and resources SEO-Safe Blocking – 35+ legitimate search engines and social media indexers are automatically whitelisted and will NEVER be blocked Granular Control – Enable or disable protection against each AI provider individually (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Apple, ByteDance, and more) Real-Time Analytics – Beautiful interactive charts showing blocked traffic trends and bot breakdowns Take Control – Decide exactly who can and cannot access your valuable content ✨ Key Features Interactive Analytics Dashboard (NEW in v1.0.5) * Real-time Chart.js powered trend graphs and doughnut charts * Switchable timeframes: 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day views * KPI summary cards showing total blocks, today’s blocks, active rules, and top scraper * Bot traffic breakdown showing which AI crawlers hit your site the most Granular AI Crawler Toggles (NEW in v1.0.5) * Individual on/off switches for each AI provider * Covers OpenAI (GPTBot, ChatGPT-User), Anthropic (ClaudeBot), Google (Gemini/Extended), Perplexity, Meta (FacebookBot), Apple (Applebot-Extended), ByteDance (Bytespider), Common Crawl, Cohere, Amazon, Diffbot, You.com, and more * Select All / Deselect All bulk actions for quick configuration * Each toggle shows provider name, description, and exact User-Agent strings SEO Safety & Search Engine Whitelist (NEW in v1.0.5) * 35+ whitelisted search engines and social media indexers that are NEVER blocked * Includes Googlebot, Bingbot, DuckDuckBot, Baiduspider, YandexBot, Twitterbot, LinkedInBot, Facebook, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, and more * Explicit Allow: / rules added to robots.txt for all whitelisted bots * Developer-friendly btsld_search_engine_whitelist filter hook for custom additions * Standard Applebot (Siri/Spotlight) is whitelisted while Applebot-Extended (AI training) remains blockable Real-Time Bot Blocking * Actively blocks bots by their User-Agent on every page request * Immediate protection with zero configuration needed * Returns proper 403 Forbidden headers with no-cache directives Comprehensive Default Blocklist * Pre-configured list of 15+ AI crawler groups covering 20+ User-Agent signatures * Includes GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot, Bytespider, FacebookBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Amazonbot, and more * Regularly updated with new bot signatures in each plugin version Advanced Logging & Analytics * Track every blocked bot attempt with detailed logs * View bot name, IP address, user agent, and timestamp * Pagination system – Browse through logs easily (20 entries per page) * Daily aggregated statistics powering the dashboard charts * Running statistics showing total and daily blocked requests CSV Export Capability * Export your block logs to CSV format with UTF-8 BOM for Excel compatibility * Filter exports by date range (7 days, 14 days, 30 days, or all time) * Includes timestamp, date, bot name, IP address, and full User-Agent robots.txt Integration * Automatically adds Disallow rules for blocked AI bots * Automatically adds Allow rules for whitelisted search engines * Provides dual-layer protection for both compliant and aggressive bots Admin Toolbar Widget * Real-time “Blocked Today” counter in the WordPress admin bar * Quick-access dropdown links to Dashboard, AI Rules, Activity Log, and Settings * Lifetime blocked count display Fully Customizable * Add your own custom User-Agent strings to block * Simple textarea interface – one bot per line * Enable/disable logging with a single toggle * Master on/off switch for all blocking features Modern, Intuitive Interface * Beautiful 4-tab admin dashboard: Analytics, AI Rules, Settings, Activity Log * Interactive Chart.js visualizations with smooth animations * Card-based KPI metrics grid * Modern toggle switches and responsive grid layouts * Mobile-responsive admin panel * No learning curve – start protecting immediately Lightweight & Performance-Optimized * Minimal impact on site speed * Efficient code that runs before page load * O(1) daily stats lookup for admin bar (no log iteration) * No external API calls on frontend * 60-day automatic stats pruning to keep database lean 🎯 Who Is This Plugin For? Content Creators – Protect your articles, tutorials, and creative work Bloggers – Keep your unique content from being scraped News Sites – Prevent unauthorized content aggregation E-commerce – Protect product descriptions and pricing data Publishers – Safeguard premium content from AI training datasets Any WordPress Site – That values their content and server resources 🚀 How It Works Install and activate the plugin Bot Traffic Shield immediately starts blocking known AI bots Visit the Dashboard & Charts tab to monitor blocked traffic visually Fine-tune protection in the AI Crawler Rules tab by toggling individual providers Check the Activity Log tab for detailed block records Export logs for analysis or record-keeping No complicated setup. No API keys. No subscriptions. 🔒 Privacy & Security All data stays on your server No external services or third-party dependencies on frontend GDPR compliant – you control all logged data Logs can be cleared at any time with a single click Chart.js loaded locally for WordPress.org compliance 📊 Perfect For ✅ Reducing bandwidth costs ✅ Protecting original content from AI training ✅ Improving server performance ✅ Maintaining competitive advantage ✅ Monitoring AI scraper activity with visual charts ✅ Preventing unauthorized data harvesting Stop letting AI companies profit from your hard work. Install Bot Traffic Shield and take back control of your content today! Privacy Policy Bot Traffic Shield logs the following information when a bot is blocked (if logging is enabled): * User-Agent string * IP address * Request timestamp * Bot identifier All data is stored locally in your WordPress database. No information is sent to external servers. You can disable logging or clear logs at any time from the plugin settings. Daily statistics are automatically pruned after 60 days to minimize database usage. Support For support, feature requests, or bug reports: * Visit our website: https://monarchwp.com/ * Email: [email protected] Credits Developed by MonarchWP

Tired of bad bots, scrapers, attackers and sluggish website performance? By providing real-time monitoring of accessing IPs, HTTP codes, URLs, and user agents, organized analytics, customizable timeline and visualizations, ShieldUp will help you indentify and combat threats like bad bots, scrapers, malicous attackers. Which will improve website security and performance by reducing the load on your server resources for a snappy website and great user experience. Key Features 🛡️ Advanced Security: ShieldUp protects your site from malicious bots, scrapers, attackers and hackers, shielding your website from potential threats. 🚀 Optimized Performance: Improve website speed and user experience by eliminating unnecessary requests from scrapers, bad bots and brute force attackers 🗃️ Comprehensive Data Collection: ShieldUp logs and archive accessing IPs, HTTP response codes, URLs, user agents, timestamps, etc. 📊 Detailed Data Insights: ShieldUp will analyze, organize and displays IP data based on IP ranges, request counts, details, offering a comprehensive view of your traffic within user-friendly tables. 📅 Custom Time Period: Select specific time ranges through an intuitive calendar feature for in-depth data analysis. 📈 Visualize Data: Easily visualize traffic trends and patterns with our user-friendly graphs. 🛠️ IP Tools: Helps you with actions like retrieving detailed IP information from DB or third-party tools. 🌐 Cloudflare Integration (Pro): Seamlessly connect your website to Cloudflare, enhancing security and performance even further by leverage Cloudflare’s powerful features. ⚙️ Advanced IP Management (Pro): Take control with a click. Manage IPs and IP ranges effortlessly, with actions like blocking, JavaScript challenges, whitelisting, or remove rules using Cloudflare’s firewall through the plugin. 💼 Centralized IP Database (Pro): Keep all IPs controlled by your WP plugin and Cloudflare in a centralized database for efficient management and tracking. 📝 User Activity Logging (Pro): Maintain detailed logs of all IP controls by users, ensuring accountability and providing a historical record of security actions. 🏆 Priority Support (Pro): Pro members get priority support, so you can expect quick help with any questions or issues. Please Note: Yes, the Pro version is undeniably impressive. However, the free version is really what you need and will get the job done. How it works 1. Installation and Activation Start by downloading and installing the ShieldUp plugin. Once activated, it seamlessly integrates with your WordPress, ready to work its magic. 2. Data Collection ShieldUp starts by collecting crucial data about the traffic to your website. It keeps a record of accessing IPs, including HTTP response codes, URLs, user agents, and timestamps. This data is organized into user-friendly tables and presented through interactive graphs, allowing you to gain valuable insights into your website’s traffic patterns. 3. Select, Organize and Display Data You can choose a specific time frame, making it easy to identify which IPs are accessing your site the most. It also groups IPs into /16 and /24 ranges and along with graphical representation helps you visualize trends, spot unusual activity and potential security threats. 4. Cloudflare Integration (Pro) ShieldUp seamlessly integrates with Cloudflare in PRO version, enhancing your website’s security even further. Using the Cloudflare API, you can manage IPs and IP ranges right from your WordPress dashboard. Implement blocks, JavaScript challenges, whitelist entries, or remove rules with just a few clicks. 5. IP Tools & IP Management Each IP listed in the user-friendly interface comes with action buttons, enabling you to ban IPs in your website’s firewall or CloudFlare, retrieve detailed IP information from third-party tools, and perform other custom actions. 6. Enhanced Security ShieldUp employs advanced security measures to protect your website from a wide range of threats. It identifies and blocks malicious bots, scrapers, attackers, and hackers, ensuring that your website remains secure. 7. Optimized Website Performance In addition to security, ShieldUp optimizes your website’s performance. It achieves this by filtering out unnecessary requests from bad bots, scrapers and other unwanted traffic. This optimization reduces the load on your server resources, resulting in a snappy and responsive website and great user experience. Firewalls, What we recommend? One of the best options would be a hardware-type firewall, but we wouldn’t be in this situation if we had one. The next best option for managing HTTP and HTTPS traffic is a cloud-based firewall, such as CloudFlare, especially when it is available for free and offers a wide range of excellent features. In addition to that, we also use CSF for other security solutions and to manage traffic and ports related to services like mail and SSH. So, why do we think CloudFlare is a better solution for HTTP and HTTPS trafic, than “Traditional” Server/Software-Based Firewall (CSF) especially Plugin-Like Firewalls (WordPress Plugins)? Traditional firewalls, while valuable, have limitations when compared to Cloudflare’s robust security and performance capabilities. These firewalls primarily protect your server or website by consuming server resources, leaving them vulnerable to large-scale attacks, among other things. In contrast, Cloudflare operates a global network that defends against threats at the network edge, providing superior DDoS protection and accelerated content delivery. By choosing Cloudflare, you gain a comprehensive, cloud-based solution that strengthens your website’s resilience and speed, effectively surpassing the capabilities of traditional local firewalls when it comes to HTTP and HTTPS trafic. Here are some of the main features of CloudFlare: Global Network Security: Cloudflare operates a vast global network that acts as a protective shield for your website, filtering out malicious traffic and threats before they even reach your server. This distributed approach ensures that attacks are mitigated at the network edge, preserving your server resources. Content Caching: Cloudflare’s caching infrastructure stores copies of your website’s content at data centers around the world. This means visitors experience faster load times as they access cached content from a server nearest to them, reducing server load and improving website responsiveness. Web Application Firewall (WAF): Cloudflare offers a comprehensive Web Application Firewall that can be finely tuned to your specific needs. It provides a robust defense against common web application attacks, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS), without the need for additional on-site firewall plugins. IP Control and Access Management: Cloudflare’s firewall allows you to control and manage IP access with precision. You can easily set rules to block or allow specific IPs, IP ranges, or countries, giving you granular control over who can access your website. DDoS Protection: Cloudflare’s network is designed to withstand large-scale DDoS attacks, providing a shield against volumetric threats that would overwhelm on-site firewalls. This ensures uninterrupted website availability. Performance Optimization: Cloudflare’s content delivery network (CDN) optimizes the delivery of your website’s assets, including images, scripts, and stylesheets, resulting in reduced latency and faster load times for your visitors. Scalability and Reliability: Cloudflare’s infrastructure is highly scalable and redundant, ensuring that your website remains available even during traffic spikes or server failures. By integrating Cloudflare with your WordPress site, you not only enhance security but also optimize performance, reduce server load, and simplify IP access control, all while benefiting from Cloudflare’s global network and advanced security features. It’s a comprehensive solution that takes your website’s protection and performance to the next level. This is why we use it on all our websites, including the Pro version of this plugin as well. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you use it for your website if you haven’t already, whether you intend to use this plugin or not. Please note that we still use and recommend that you use a ‘Traditional’ server/software-based firewall like CSF, in conjunction with CloudFlare, to cover various security aspects such as traffic/ports for mail, FTP, SSH, etc.