JTZL's Bot Maze vs Selective Image Guard | A deterrent for unauthorized downloads and scraping

JTZL’s Bot Maze protects your WordPress site from unwanted AI crawlers and scrapers by planting invisible trap links that only bots will follow. When a bot enters the trap maze, it gets lost in an ever-expanding maze of realistic-looking fake pages while it quietly builds a suspicion score based on its behavior. How it works: Trap link injection — Invisible links are added to your real pages. Legitimate visitors never see them, but bots following every link on the page will enter the trap maze. Lazy maze generation — Trap pages link to more trap pages, generated on demand. The deeper a bot goes, the more time it wastes. Bot scoring — Each trap page visit adds suspicion points. Deeper traversal earns bonus points. Once a threshold is reached, the visitor is flagged as a bot. Blocking and tarpitting — Flagged bots can be blocked outright (403), served decoy pages (light tarpit), or slowed down with a deliberate delay (full tarpit). Crawler verification — Known search engine crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.) are verified via reverse DNS and exempted from scoring. Features: Zero impact on legitimate visitors — trap links are hidden from humans and search engines Configurable injection method (content, footer, or both) Adjustable scoring thresholds and blocking behavior robots.txt integration to signal trap paths as disallowed Analytics dashboard showing bot activity, top IPs, and score distribution Blocked Bots detail page showing full user agent, score, visit history Optional comprehensive tracking mode to monitor blocked bot persistence Automatic log retention and maintenance via WP-Cron Privacy policy suggestion for GDPR compliance Geographic heat map of bot activity by country with two GeoIP provider options MaxMind GeoLite2 local database — all lookups on your server, GDPR-friendly (recommended) ip-api.com external API — simple setup, no license key required Lightweight — minimal footprint, geographic tracking is fully optional Third-Party Services This plugin offers optional geographic tracking with two provider options. No data is sent to any external service unless a site administrator explicitly enables one of these providers. MaxMind GeoLite2 (Recommended) When MaxMind GeoLite2 is selected as the GeoIP provider (Settings > Bot Maze > Geographic Tracking), the plugin downloads the GeoLite2-Country database from MaxMind and performs all IP-to-country lookups locally. No visitor data leaves your server. What is downloaded: The GeoLite2-Country database (~60 MB), updated weekly via WP-Cron. What is sent to MaxMind: Only your license key during database downloads. No visitor IP addresses are shared. Requires: A free MaxMind license key from maxmind.com/en/geolite2/signup. Service website: https://www.maxmind.com License: GeoLite2 databases are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Terms of service: https://www.maxmind.com/en/geolite2/eula ip-api.com When ip-api.com is selected as the GeoIP provider, the plugin sends visitor IP addresses to ip-api.com to resolve their country of origin. This data is used to display a geographic heat map of bot activity in the admin dashboard. What is sent: The visitor’s IP address only, over unencrypted HTTP. When it is sent: At the time a trap page visit is recorded, only while this provider is selected. Service website: http://ip-api.com Terms of service: https://ip-api.com/docs/legal Privacy policy: ip-api.com does not log queries from the free API endpoint. Note: The free tier only supports HTTP (not HTTPS). If your site must comply with GDPR, use the MaxMind local database option instead. Geographic tracking is off by default and requires explicit opt-in by a site administrator.

Selective Image Guard is a lightweight WordPress plugin that adds multiple layers of protection to your website’s images. It’s ideal for photographers, designers, and content creators who want to deter theft and unauthorized use of their visual content. Key Features Desktop Screenshot Prevention: Applies a blur filter to protected images when specific keyboard shortcuts for screenshots are detected. This is a deterrent, not a foolproof solution. Print Protection: Blurs protected images when a user attempts to print the page. Selective Protection: You control which images are protected. The plugin only affects images you mark as protected in the media library. How It Works Navigate to your media library and select the image you want to protect. Check the “Protect this image” option. The plugin will automatically apply front-end protections to the selected image to help prevent unauthorized access. Free Features The free version gives you solid protection against common image theft techniques: DevTools Detection – Prevents users from opening browser developer tools to inspect and steal images. JavaScript Disabling Detection – Detects when JavaScript is disabled, ensuring protections remain active. Desktop Screenshot Prevention – Blocks most attempts to capture screenshots of your images on desktop. Print Protection – Prevents printing of protected images directly from the browser. PRO Features The PRO version unlocks advanced and flexible controls for complete image protection: Bulk Protection – Quickly apply protection to all images across your website with a single setting. Featured Images Protection – Protects your WordPress featured images from theft. Protection by Post Type – Apply image protection only where you need it (e.g., posts, pages, custom post types). WooCommerce Product Galleries – Keep your product images safe and protect your online shop from unauthorized copying. Watermark – Automatically add a customizable watermark to your images for extra security. Premium Support – Get direct, priority support from the plugin author. Don’t understimate the value of a deterrent. This plugin provides a deterrent, not a foolproof solution. No client-side technique can offer 100% protection against a determined attacker. But don’t underestimate the value of a deterrent. Think about the methods used to keep mosquitoes away. Even if they don’t work 100%, would you rather be surrounded by hundreds of mosquitoes or just a couple? That’s the idea of a deterrent. Examples of Use Here are several examples where you would want to display an image on a site but discourage people from sharing it: Online course slides – You want students to see diagrams or infographics, but not download or redistribute them outside your platform. Stock photography previews – You show high-resolution images to logged-in subscribers, but do not want those same images shared publicly without a license. Members-only content – For example, fitness programs or meal plans with recipe cards as images, visible only to paying members. Confidential documents – An internal portal where staff see charts or scanned reports, but you do not want them forwarded outside the company. Product prototypes – Showing early design mockups (e.g. fashion sketches or unreleased product photos) to investors or testers, but preventing leaks to competitors. Protection against unauthorized scraping – Preventing automated bots from copying images and republishing them without permission. E-commerce product photos – Protecting your catalog from competitors scraping product images to use in their own stores. Real estate listings – Preventing property photos from being scraped and reused on unauthorized portals. Artistic portfolios – Protecting photographers, illustrators, and designers from having their portfolio images scraped and reused without attribution. News and media outlets – Protecting journalistic images from being scraped and re-hosted by content farms. Stock agencies – Protecting preview images (with or without watermarks) from being scraped in bulk to avoid licensing. Recipe or DIY blogs – Protecting step-by-step photos from being scraped and republished elsewhere. More Information About Image Protection For more details about image protection and the limitations of client-side techniques, read the article: How to Protect Images on WordPress (And How to Prevent Theft) Credits Developed by Jose Mortellaro