Miscellaneous Hacks - Ban Spiders by User Agent

What this mod does
With this mod you can enter User Agents to watch or ban, you can also recieve emails or have an Output.txt created and updated with time and date of visits. It doesn't just have to be spiders, you can watch, log or ban any useragent!

How to install
Simply import the product ban_spider, the mod is active by default but none of the other options are turned on.

What is a UserAgent?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent

Understanding a UserAgent string
http://user-agent-string.info/parse

Genuine User Getting Blocked?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=105

Tools to help
http://whatsmyuseragent.com/SwitchingUserAgents.asp
http://www.botsvsbrowsers.com/SimulateUserAgent.asp

FAQ
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=137

What's a bot?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spambot

How do i ban a bot?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=318
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....7&postcount=51

Where's output.txt located?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=216

Bad bot lists
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=259
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=224
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=281

VB4.x Version of Ban Spiders By User Agent

Tested on vb3.7.x, vB3.8.x but should work on any version.

__________________________________________________ __________________
Special thanks to:
Lior
KH99
BoP5
for helping me sort out a few issues

...and beta testers
ForceHSS (Special thanks to Force for latest testing)
ozzy47
GreyHost

If you use this please mark as INSTALLED

History
9th June 2011 Orginal xml added
12th June 2011 Added both email notification and text file logging
22nd June 2011 Version 2.0.0, Added create thread on activity

1. Added match facility you can now use something like Yandex and it will match MOZILLA/5.0 (COMPATIBLE; YANDEXBOT/3.0; +HTTP://YANDEX.COM/BOTS)
2. Added clickable link to visited thread

22nd September 2011 added user redirect url selection
08th October Beta testing started for thread creation.
20th October Beta testing started for emailing.
21st October Beta testing complete Ver 3.0.0 uploaded
29th October minor fix added to cope with empty userid on thread creation
30th October Beta testing automatic redirection to spiders/bots IP
31st October New xml uploaded with automatic redirect to IP
25th November Minor fix for blank forumid fixed
26th November 2011 Fixed version check & create thread Off by default
17th December 2014 Version 3.1.0 uploaded, Extra logging and statistics added by Ozzy47 (Chris)
18th December 2014 Version 3.1.2 uploaded, due to rogue process from other mod
18th December 2014 Version 3.1.3 uploaded, due to previous one being VB4 mistakingly uploaded

The Bad Bots list is now included in the product
Please prune out all those that you wish to be able to see your site (i suggest you definately prune out "DA" and "Custo" :

Support will now only be given to those who have this mod marked as INSTALLED

[Midohash]

Thanks a lot Simon :up: ... I still have same problem with Baidu ... I have checked my raw access log today and still having loads of Baidu spiders in my site 48 hours after installing the mod ... this is how they appear in my log file:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Baiduspider/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html)

Any recommendations?

Regarding Alexa, I have certified my site and have pasted their javascript code in the header of my forum as they recommend so they can analyse my website traffic directly regardless of visitors with/without alexa toolbar ... I don't know if my alexa rank will drop due to drop in the overall visitor numbers after banning spiders?

Regards

[Simon Lloyd]

of course your raw logs from cpanel, plesk or whathaveyou will show them visiting your site, remember this mod redirects them when trying to load your site, it does that regardless of whether they are trying to load the homepage or a thread, your Alexa shouldn't drop on account of redirecting spiders, in fact i've been redirecting these spiders for ages on one of my sites that was Page Rank 2 and it's now PR3, so if it's not hurting Google rank it has to be good

Can you give me a screenshot of your settings for ths mod?

[Midohash]

Thanks Simon, enclosed is a screenshot of my settings for the mod. My Alexa rank dropped from 83000 to 84000 but not sure if that related to the drop in the visitors count after applying the mod or just an incidental finding

[Simon Lloyd]

Midohash, if you want to pm me admin access i'll take a look.

[Doug Nelson]

Excellent mod, thank you.

What is the advantage/disadvantage to redirecting spiders back to their own IP?

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Doug Nelson

Excellent mod, thank you.

What is the advantage/disadvantage to redirecting spiders back to their own IP?

You have to send them somewhere and whilst the example i gave you is a fun place to send them and they expect a certain amount of bots there's no guarantees that it will always be there, however, if you redirect to their own IP they will always have somewhere to be redirected to

[gsmlover4u]

to block spiders are benificial or not ?

[Simon Lloyd]

Blocking spiders will save you tons on your bandwidth and server load, take the Baiduspider they send hundreds upon hindreds of bots to index your site and they don't obey robots.txt

[gsmlover4u]

working on vbulletin 4.1.10

[steviewonder44]

The ips for baidu I also ban: 123, 124 125 and 58