Bot Traffic Shield – Block Bad Bots and Stop AI Bots Crawlers vs WP fail2ban – Advanced Security

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

fail2ban is one of the simplest and most effective security measures you can implement to protect your WordPress site. WP fail2ban provides the link between WordPress and fail2ban: Oct 17 20:59:54 foobar wordpress(www.example.com)[1234]: Authentication failure for admin from 192.168.0.1 Oct 17 21:00:00 foobar wordpress(www.example.com)[2345]: Accepted password for admin from 192.168.0.1 WPf2b comes with three fail2ban filters: wordpress-hard.conf, wordpress-soft.conf, and wordpress-extra.conf. These are designed to allow a split between immediate banning (hard) and the traditional more graceful approach (soft), with extra rules for custom configurations. Features Failed Login Attempts The very first feature of WPf2b: logging failed login attempts so the IP can be banned. Just as useful today as it was then. Block User Enumeration One of the most common precursors to a password-guessing brute force attack is user enumeration. WPf2b can block it, stopping the attack before it starts. Block username logins Sometimes it’s not possible to block user enumeration (for example, if your theme provides Author profiles). WPf2b can require users to login with their email address instead of their username. Blocking Users Anther of the older WPf2b features: the login process can be aborted for specified usernames. Say a bot collected your site’s usernames before you blocked user enumeration. Once you’ve changed all the usernames, add the old ones to the list; anything using them will trigger a “hard” fail. Empty Username Login Attempts Some bots will try to login without a username; harmless, but annoying. These attempts are logged as a “soft” fail so the more persistent bots will be banned. Spam WPf2b will log a spammer’s IP address as a “hard” fail when their comment is marked as spam; the Premium version will also log the IP when Akismet discards “obvious” spam. Attempted Comments Some spam bots try to comment on everything, even things that aren’t there. WPf2b detects these and logs them as a “hard” fail. Pingbacks Pingbacks are a great feature, but they can be abused to attack the rest of the WWW. Rather than disable them completely, WPf2b effectively rate-limits potential attackers by logging the IP address as a “soft” fail. Block XML‑RPC Requests [Premium] The only reason most sites need XML‑RPC (other than Pingbacks) is for Jetpack; WPf2b Premium can block XML‑RPC while allowing Jetpack and/or Pingbacks. Block Countries [Premium] Sometimes you just need a bigger hammer – if you’re seeing nothing but attacks from some countries, block them! Cloudflare and Proxy Servers WPf2b will work with Cloudflare, and the Premium version will automatically update the list of Cloudflare IP addresses. You can also configure your own list of trusted proxies. syslog Dashboard Widget Ever wondered what’s being logged? The dashboard widget shows the last 5 messages; the Premium version keeps a full history to help you analyse and prevent attacks. Site Health Check WPf2b will (try to) check that your fail2ban configuration is sane and that the filters are up to date; out-of-date filters are the primary cause of WPf2b not working as well as it can. When did you last run the Site Health tool? mu-plugins Support WPf2b can easily be configured as a “must-use plugin” – see Configuration. API to Extend WPf2b If your plugin can detect behaviour which should be blocked, why reinvent the wheel? Event Hooks [Premium] Need to do something special when WPf2b detects a particular event? There’s a hook for that. Premium Web Application Firewall (WAF) Akismet support. Block XML‑RPC while allowing Jetpack and/or Pingbacks. Block Countries. Auto-update Cloudflare IPs. Event log. Event hooks.