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

[Sforums]

When you say "User Agents", you mean users or what? Not sure I understand purpose of this mod?

[Simon Lloyd]

A user agent string is delivered by pretty much everyone and everything that visits your site, if you have your vbulltin options set so admin can resolve ip addresses then go to who's online then click the ip address that you see on the right for a guest, spider or forum member it will resolve to a user agent string something like the one i posted above. Remember, Google is your friend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent

[Jncocontrol]

From my understanding, Spiders are suppose to be our friends in the Forum community?

[Boofo]

Not when there 25 of the same spiders crawling the site day after day, non-stop. And from China, to boot.

[oddball118]

I was wondering about that Baidu Spider. What would I add to the list to get rid of them? I usually see 10 - 20 at a time.

[Boofo]

Baidu

[Simon Lloyd]

Thanks Boofo, if you added Baiduspider then it would ban everything that has exactly that in the UA but not everything that had Baidu, so using just Baidu will ban everything that has that as part of its string so Baiduspider would also be banned.

[AURFSCAN]

I like the txt output. I'll have to check this out .... tagged

my htaccess

BrowserMatchNoCase Baiduspider bad_bot
Deny from env=bad_bot

[Wayne Luke]

Originally Posted by Boofo

Baidu

I banned them at the server level. Not catering to the Chinese or Asian market and never will cater to the Chinese or Asian market so don't need them to index my site.