Bot Traffic Shield – Block Bad Bots and Stop AI Bots Crawlers vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

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

Compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load automatically with the powerful Smush image optimizer to keep your WordPress site fast, without losing quality. Smush makes it easy to optimize images, compress images, and deliver images faster across your entire WordPress site. This all-in-one image optimizer automatically reduces image file sizes, enables image lazy load, and serves modern formats like WebP and AVIF, all without breaking image quality or adding extra work. Whether you’re running a blog, store, or portfolio, Smush helps you optimize images at scale and keep your site fast with a trusted WordPress image optimizer. Trusted by 1+ Million Sites | 4.8/5 Star Rating Get everything you need to optimize images and speed up your site. Smush works out of the box with no complicated setup – just install and let it handle the rest. Compress images without losing quality Reduce image file size automatically while keeping your images sharp and clear. Smush is an easy-to-use image optimizer which let’s you compress images using both lossless and lossy compression, giving you the best balance of quality and performance without extra work. You can also compress images outside the media library using Directory Smush, making it easy to optimize images stored in theme folders, plugins, or other directories on your server. Lazy load images for faster pages Enable image lazy load across your site so images load only when needed. This image optimizer improves initial page speed and creates a smoother experience for visitors without extra configuration. Serve WebP and AVIF images automatically (PRO) Convert images to WebP and AVIF and serve them automatically to supported browsers. Smush helps you optimize images using next-gen formats to reduce file size and improve load times across your WordPress site. Deliver images faster with an Image CDN (PRO) Serve images through a global image CDN to reduce latency and improve load times for visitors around the world. 119 global CDN servers Up to 500 GB of bandwidth Faster image delivery based on visitor location Improved performance for image-heavy and high-traffic sites Automatically resize and fix image dimensions (PRO) Eliminate common PageSpeed warnings and improve layout stability with automatic image sizing. Smush dynamically resizes images to perfectly fit their containers, regardless of original size, helping fix the “Properly size images” warning in Google PageSpeed Insights. It also automatically adds missing width and height attributes to your images, improving rendering speed and reducing layout shifts. This helps you meet the “Ensure images have explicit width and height” recommendation without any manual work. Optimize your entire site, automatically Smush works across your whole site as a powerful image optimizer to optimize images as you upload them and maintain performance over time without manual work. Optimize images automatically on upload Compress images in bulk or individually Works with your existing media library No need to re-upload images Enable image lazy load across your site Convert images to WebP and AVIF Deliver images with an integrated image CDN Automatically resize and serve correctly sized images Optimize images outside the media library with Directory Smush Built for performance Smush improves page speed and overall performance by reducing image weight and improving how images are delivered. Reduce page load times Improve user experience Better performance for image-heavy pages Supports image lazy load and preload images (PRO) for faster perceived performance Works with your existing setup Smush is built to work with your current WordPress setup, including popular themes, page builders, and plugins. Compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, WPBakery, and more Works with WooCommerce stores No need to change your workflow Easy to enable and configure Designed to be simple You don’t need to be a performance expert to optimize images with Smush image optimizer. Works out of the box Simple settings when you need them No technical knowledge required Safe to use on any site Why choose Smush? There are plenty of image optimization plugins, but Smush focuses on making it easy to optimize images, compress images, and improve performance without complexity. As a leading WordPress image optimizer, Smush gives you powerful optimization tools without the technical hassle. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress users Built specifically for WordPress Regular updates and improvements Backed by the WPMU DEV team Get started in minutes Install Smush, activate it, and start to compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load right away. This easy-to-use image optimizer helps most sites see improvements immediately without changing how they upload or manage images. About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Learn more here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you! Contact and Credits Originally written by Alex Dunae at Dialect (dialect.ca, e-mail ‘alex’ at ‘dialect dot ca’), 2008-11.