Blackhole for Bad Bots vs EDH Bad Bots

✨ 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! 🙂

EDH Bad Bots is an intelligent bot detection and blocking system that protects your WordPress site from unwanted crawlers and malicious bots. Unlike traditional blocking methods that rely on user agent strings (which can be easily spoofed), this plugin uses a honeypot technique to identify and block bots that don’t respect your site’s robots.txt directives. Key Features Automatic Bot Detection: Identifies bad bots using a hidden trap URL technique Smart Blocking System: Blocks misbehaving bots with configurable duration (default 30 days) Advanced DNS Resolution: PTR record lookups with DNS over HTTPS (DoH) support for hostname identification Dual-Level Blocking: Server-level .htaccess blocking AND PHP-level blocking for maximum effectiveness Configurable Blocking Methods: Choose between .htaccess blocking (Apache) or PHP-only blocking (Nginx compatible) IP Whitelist Management: Protect trusted IPs from ever being blocked Enhanced Admin Interface: Clean dashboard with hostname display, manual hostname updates, and debug tools Background Processing: Automated hostname resolution via WordPress cron jobs Legitimate Crawler Protection: Synchronous FCrDNS verification prevents Googlebot and similar crawlers from being blocked, even if robots.txt is misconfigured robots.txt Health Check: Daily cron monitors for a physical robots.txt missing the trap Disallow rule and alerts the admin Database Optimization: Automatic cleanup of expired blocks to maintain performance Security-First Design: All forms include proper nonce verification and user capability checks How It Works The plugin implements a sophisticated honeypot system: Trap URL Generation: Creates a unique, hidden URL specific to your domain Robots.txt Integration: Automatically adds a Disallow rule for the trap URL Hidden Link Placement: Places an invisible link to the trap URL in your site’s footer Bot Detection: When bad bots ignore robots.txt and follow the hidden link, they’re identified Automatic Blocking: Detected bot IPs are blocked with configurable duration and immediate effect Hostname Resolution: PTR record lookups identify the hostname/organization behind blocked IPs Legitimate Crawler Guard: If a request to the trap URL carries a Googlebot, Bingbot, or similar User-Agent, FCrDNS is run synchronously before any block decision. Verified crawlers are whitelisted on the spot; spoofed UAs are blocked normally. robots.txt Health Check: A daily cron fetches and validates the site’s robots.txt. If a physical file is missing the Disallow rule, an admin notice is shown until the issue is resolved. Configuration Admin Dashboard Access the plugin dashboard at Tools > Bad Bots in your WordPress admin: Whitelisted IPs Tab Add IP addresses that should never be blocked Remove IPs from the whitelist View all currently whitelisted addresses with timestamps Blocked Bots Tab View all currently blocked IP addresses with hostnames See when each IP was blocked and when the block expires Manually update missing hostnames for better identification Force refresh all hostnames to clear cache and re-resolve Debug hostname resolution issues (when WP_DEBUG is enabled) Manually unblock IPs if needed Options Tab .htaccess Blocking: Enable/disable server-level IP blocking via .htaccess file Block Duration: Configure how many days to block detected bots Configure blocking method based on your server setup (Apache vs Nginx) Server-level blocking bypasses caching for immediate effect Help Tab Detailed explanation of how the plugin works Best practices for managing IPs Information about .htaccess blocking options Unique trap URL for caching plugin exclusion Requirements WordPress 6.2 or higher PHP 7.4 or higher MySQL 5.6 or higher Apache server (for .htaccess blocking) or Nginx (PHP-only blocking) Writable .htaccess file (if using Apache server-level blocking) Technical Details Database Tables The plugin creates two custom database tables: wp_edhbb_blocked_bots: Stores blocked IP addresses with expiration dates and hostnames wp_edhbb_whitelisted_ips: Stores permanently whitelisted IP addresses DNS Resolution System The plugin includes an advanced DNS lookup system: DNS over HTTPS (DoH) Support Primary providers: Cloudflare DNS, Google DNS Secure queries: HTTPS-encrypted DNS requests for enhanced privacy Fallback system: Automatic fallback to traditional DNS methods PTR Record Lookups Reverse DNS: Converts IP addresses to hostnames for better identification IPv4 and IPv6 support: Full support for both IP versions Caching: Results cached for 1 hour to improve performance Background processing: Automated hostname resolution via WordPress cron Blocking Methods The plugin offers two blocking approaches: 1. Server-Level Blocking (.htaccess) Default method for Apache servers Blocks IPs at the server level before WordPress loads Bypasses caching plugins for immediate effect More efficient and faster blocking Automatically manages .htaccess file with unique markers Safe cleanup on plugin deactivation 2. PHP-Level Blocking Alternative method for Nginx or when .htaccess is unavailable Blocks IPs during WordPress initialization Compatible with all web servers May be affected by caching plugins No server configuration files modified Security Features Nonce Verification: All forms use WordPress nonces for CSRF protection Capability Checks: Only users with manage_options capability can access admin features Input Sanitization: All user inputs are properly sanitized and validated SQL Injection Protection: All database queries use prepared statements Safe .htaccess Management: Uses unique markers and automatic cleanup Performance Optimization Automatic Cleanup: Expired blocks are automatically removed from the database Efficient Queries: Database operations are optimized for minimal performance impact Smart Loading: Admin assets only load on the plugin’s admin page Server-Level Blocking: .htaccess blocking prevents blocked requests from reaching PHP Whitelist Filtering: Whitelisted IPs are excluded from .htaccess rules automatically DNS Caching: Hostname lookups cached to reduce DNS query overhead Background Processing: Hostname resolution runs in background to avoid delays API Hooks Actions plugins_loaded: Plugin initialization init: Early request blocking check template_redirect: Bot trap detection wp_footer: Hidden link injection admin_menu: Admin page registration admin_notices: robots.txt misconfiguration warning edhbb_update_hostnames_cron: Background hostname resolution (hourly) edhbb_check_robots_txt_cron: robots.txt Disallow validation (daily) Filters robots_txt: Adds disallow rule to robots.txt edhbb_trusted_crawler_domains: Customise the FCrDNS hostname suffixes used to identify legitimate crawlers (e.g. .googlebot.com) edhbb_trusted_crawler_ua_patterns: Customise the User-Agent tokens that trigger a synchronous FCrDNS check on trap hits (e.g. googlebot, bingbot) File Structure ` edh-bad-bots/ ├── admin/ │ └── views/ │ └── admin-display.php # Admin interface HTML ├── assets/ │ ├── css/ │ │ └── admin-style.css # Admin page styling │ └── js/ │ └── admin-script.js # Admin page JavaScript ├── includes/ │ ├── class-edhbb-admin.php # Admin functionality │ ├── class-edhbb-blocker.php # Bot detection and blocking │ ├── class-edhbb-database.php # Database operations │ └── class-edhbb-dnslookup.php # DNS/PTR lookup system ├── edh-bad-bots.php # Main plugin file ├── LICENSE └── readme.txt ` Contributing Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. Development Setup Clone the repository to your WordPress plugins directory Ensure you have a WordPress development environment running Activate the plugin and test your changes License This project is licensed under the GPL v3 or later. Author EncodeDotHost – Website: https://encode.host – GitHub: @EncodeDotHost Support For support, please visit the support forum: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/edh-bad-bots/