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

[zascok]

Don't really know what the Yandex has done to be called bad_bot and ia_archiver ?

Nice mod installed

[Simon Lloyd]

As has been said many times blocking spiders/bots is a personal thing, you need to understand who and which countries you are aiming your site and content at, do you have enoughj resources to allow your content to be scraped by archivers...etc, do you have enough bandwidth to allow bots who add no value or do not cater for your target audience to index your content?

Just be very honest with yourself on what your intentions are with regards to your target audience and user experience

[zascok]

here is a one to your collection Ezooms <-- really bad one don't even give a thing about robot.txt.

About the Yandex. Just in case: it's the biggest engine in Russian language. Of course if you don't wanna it index you site that is you personal thing. All I asked is: what has it done? Did anyone ever see that bot is braking the rules ?

[Simon Lloyd]

Is your site in english?, do you cater for Russians? (Yandex = Yahoo) it's done nothing bad that i know of and my interest isn't to keep a list of "bad bots"...etc, i purely built this to save on precious bandwidth that was being decimated by bots, my site is englsh, the UTF is set up as english...etc but yandex crawl my site, i don't need them, they dont bring trafic and i don't speak Russian, so i block them, so thats what i mean, choose what you want to block with regards to who you ar targetting.

In the mod description there's links to maintained lists that you can use, the ones in the product were just your starter

[rootsxrocks]

OMG I can Banish Baudi Thank you I am sick of that worthless misbehaving IP switching overloading spider.

[zascok]

OK i see now. Tia. Now wondering is there is a plugin that bans counties by the name

[rootsxrocks]

We are a localized site too and have no need for Chinese or Russian search results.

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by rootsxrocks

OMG I can Banish Baudi Thank you I am sick of that worthless misbehaving IP switching overloading spider.

Glad i could be of service

[ForceHSS]

xpymep.exe
here is a new one to add to the list

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by ForceHSS

xpymep.exe
here is a new one to add to the list

One you already gave us, in your fantastic list posted earlier in the thread:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=321