Stop Bad Bots is a software to improve security and stop Bad Bots from stealing you.
Bad bots consume bandwidth, slow down your server, steal your content and look for vulnerability to compromise your server.
To install this App, you need:
1) Linux Server
2) PHP version 5.6 or bigger
3) MySQLi installed
4) Memory 128M or bigger
5) Session Support: enabled
6) PHP Curl: enabled
7) PHP Zip Lib: enabled
For details about your server or make upgrade, talk with your hosting company.
If your site is a WordPress site, click here to go to WordPress version.
To install Stop Bad Bots App in your server, follow these steps:
1) Download it
Just follow this link to download.
and download the Non-WordPress version.
2) Unzip it
After download it for your local computer, unzip the file. Unzipping is the act of extracting the files from a zipped single file.
3) Upload it
Upload all StopBadBots folder to your server at root place. You can use Filezilla or another free system.
For example:
(Replace YourSite.com with your site name)
4) Install it
After Upload, go to:
www.YourSite.com/stopbadbots/install
(Replace YourSite.com with your site name)
to begin the wizard guided install process.
If you find problems, ask for help to your hosting company or go to our support page:
Before to make these changes, make a copy (backup) of page index.html to a safe place.
After the previous step (fresh install), go to your main page and add this code below.
Add on the top of your page.
First of all, remember, if necessary to rename your page from:
index.html
to
index.php
set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . '/stopbadbots/');
require_once('stopbadbots/stopbadbots.php');
Fatal error: require_once( ...
double check if you uploaded all files to the folder:
/stopbadbots/
(in root folder of your server)
(look the fresh install instructions)
After install, in your settings page, enable automatic updates.
Then, you will receive database updates and software updates automatically.
Or, you can follow the same steps you made to install the software.
After install, go to:
and look for the Setup link.
Update the form and click SAVE CHANGES.
You will find there one
StartUp guide.
Go to:
to manage the App.
You will find all info, as for example:
1) Enable /disable options
2) Bots Tables
3) How to include and disable some bots
4) Dashboard with a lot of information about bots blocked
You can use the free version forever, without a time limit.
The free version will block thousands of bad bots, thousands of bad IPs and bad referers but the Premium version, you can get also:
1) Weekly updates in databases (free Version it is updated every 4 months)
2) Firewall protection
3) Rate Limiting: limit the number of bot's visits (non-humans)
4) Block HTTP tools (HTTP Tools are tools to do HTTP requests, used for not humans.)
5) Block all visitors with Blank User-Agent.
6) Block false google bot. (we never block the real google bot)
For details, visit:
Our Firewall protects your site against malicious URL requests. It checks all incoming traffic and quietly blocks bad requests containing nasty stuff like eval(, base64_ and so on.
- 100% Plug-n-play functionality
- No configuration required
- Blocks a wide range of malicious requests
- Scans all incoming traffic and blocks bad requests
- Blocks directory traversal attacks
- Blocks executable file uploads
- Blocks SQL injection attacks
- Scans all types of requests: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
You can activate notifications to receive emails with details about requests blockeds.
Firewall is available only in Premium (or pro) version.
If the user agent contain the nickname (or match the IP), our system show to them one 403 Forbidden screen. Then, in your statistics like webalizer or visitor metrics, for example, you can see status 403 (forbidden) and 0 bytes. They can’t steal your data neither find for vulnerabilities to attack you.
Some possibilities:
Try to disable our plugin for a whole day and control your bandwidth usage.
Try to control your bandwidth also with another tool, maybe WHM panel.
Double-check if our plugin it is enabled. Try to put notifications on and control for a couple of minutes emails in your inbox. If you have the pro (or premium) version, check if you activated our firewall.
Check also if you don’t have another anti bot or anti hacker plugin installed and this plugin not accept the bots (to record their IP, user agent and so on….) before we can block them.
You can use linux wget to test if our plugin it is working. Try to access your site with wget from a linux machine. for example: Open linux terminal and type
wget https://www.yoursite.com
You will get one empty file. Then, nothing was downloaded. The protection is working but your statistical tool will show one hit.
If the user agent contain the nickname (or match the IP), our system show to them one 403 Forbidden screen. Then, in your statistics like webalizer or visitor metrics, for example, you can see status 403 (forbidden) and 0 bytes.
Try to disable our plugin for a whole day and control your bandwidth usage.
Try to control your bandwidth also with another tool, maybe WHM panel.
You can use linux wget to test if our plugin it is working. Try to access your site with wget from a linux machine. for example: Open linux terminal and type
wget https://www.yoursite.com
You will get one empty file. Then, nothing was downloaded. The protection is working but your statistical tool will show one hit. You saved bandwidth and no data was stolen.
Ghost referrals (also known as log spam, referrer bombing, Ghost Spam or Phantom Visits) pollute your analytics report with false visits. They are hitting Analytics directly and don’t touching your website.
Any plugin or even if using .htaccess file can help you.
To avoid this in your Google Analytics account, you can create a Hostname Filter on each view to make sure that only traffic coming from valid website properties are included. Check Google support site for more details.
Our plugin, Stop Bad Bots, can help you to block bad bots. Bad bots consume bandwidth, slow down your server, steal your content and look for vulnerability to compromise your server.
Visit our troubleshooting page.
Should you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please you can submit a support ticket. (guest ticket available)
When creating a support ticket, try to explain as clearly as you can the issue you are having and what you were trying to do when the problem occurred.
don't forget to provide the link to your site, wp-admin and FTP credentials.
Our support guys will get back to you as soon as possible.
The StopBadBots support center works Monday through Friday.
Thanks a lot for using this plugin. I hope you found this document helpful. Please support this product by giving your ratings and testimonial on Social Networks.
With best wishes
Bill Minozzi
www.StopBadBots.com