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

How does it work?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=381

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

Tested on vb3.7.x, vB3.8.x , vB4.x.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, Hook changed extra logging and statistics added by Ozzy47 (Chris)
18th December 2014 Version 3.1.1 uploaded, prevented spiders being counted when mod turned off.
17th December 2014 Version 3.1.2 uploaded, due to rogue code from another mod
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

[CAG CheechDogg]

Originally Posted by simonhind

a wise choice if that's happening to you, as they will eat up your bandwidth

Yeah Simon, I had to do it, I didn't want to because it did bring in traffic but after carefully thinking about it, it's not going to hurt me or the site if I block it.

Oh the funs of owning a website eh? lol..

[TheSupportForum]

Originally Posted by CAG CheechDogg

Yeah Simon, I had to do it, I didn't want to because it did bring in traffic but after carefully thinking about it, it's not going to hurt me or the site if I block it.

Oh the funs of owning a website eh? lol..

for me i own 2 so i am catching bots to block across 2 domains
i have spam traps on 1 to catch them

[CAG CheechDogg]

Just a bit of FYI, I was getting hit by Russian IPs and they were also trying to register, I tracked it down to "Deepnet" Explorer which I just blocked as well, just thought I would mention that here.

[Simon Lloyd]

As for Facebook, if you've gone that route maybe it would be beneficial to set up an rss feed from your site in facebook

[CAG CheechDogg]

I did have the rss feed using "rss graffiti" which will no longer work now that I blocked facebook

Do you know any other way to do this ?

[Simon Lloyd]

Ah!, no it was graffitti that i was using, however, you can get twitter to post to facebook

[CAG CheechDogg]

Hmmm...ok I will check to see how twitter will crawl my site lol....I did set up an RSS feed a couple minutes ago using Social RSS: http://www.facebook.com/CAGclan/app_23798139265

I will do some searching for twitter to facebook though, thanks for the suggestion!

[CAG CheechDogg]

Simon, rss graffiti still works with facebook blocked by this mod! muahaha! This is great!

[Simon Lloyd]

Glad you're happy!

[CAG CheechDogg]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

Glad you're happy!

Yeah Simon thanks again for a great mod! Now I don't have the facebook critters and my new threads are still getting posted on facebook...muahahha!