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How to Stop BAD BOTS in WordPress (Via Plugin)

Posted on:November 2, 2023
Updated on:November 4, 2023
Written BymyglobalHOST

If you’re facing high bandwidth usage or fluctuation / slow website loading speed and you have finally understood that one of the biggest reasons are “BAD BOTS” then you are at the right place. Yes! Bad bots slows down your website and may make it completely inaccessible. Hence it is crucial to stop bad bots from accessing your wordpress website so that real users can.

Easiest Way – Stopping Bad Bots Using Plugin

One of the easiest way in stopping bad bots for your wordpress website is to install a “Blackhole for Bad Bots” plugin developed By Jeff Starr.

How to install Blackhole plugin for Bad Bots

To Install this plugin in your wordpress website, simply follow the below steps:

  • Login to your WordPress Website by accessing the default url https://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php or the admin path (if changed by you previously). Or visit https://wordpress.org/plugins/blackhole-bad-bots/ for manual download and upload)
  • Navigate to Plugins > Add New
  • Search for Blackhole for Bad Bots
  • Click on Install button (Wait for few seconds as it takes sometime to install it)
  • Click on Active button.
  • That’s it. The desired plugin is installed in your website.

How to configure Blackhole plugin for Bad Bots

To configure this plugin for your wordpress website, simply follow the below steps:

  • Login to your WordPress Website by accessing the default url https://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php or the admin path (if changed by you previously).
  • Carefully check the WordPress left sidebar and look for Blackhole Option / Menu > Click on it to open.
  • Simply change settings according to your need. The default settings are good enough to start. Once done click on Save Changes button.
  • That’s it the on page settings has been done.

Edit / Create Robots.txt file

This step is dire important for the above settings to work properly and in any case should not be neglected.

  • Login to cPanel (Hosting Control Panel). If you’re not sure how to login to cPanel then kindly contact your hosting provider.
  • Navigate to “File Manager” and open it.
  • Open “public_html” folder by double clicking on it.
  • Check if there is any file by the name of robots.txt
  • If the file does not exist, then please create it by clicking on “+File” button available on the left top bar of the panel / screen.
  • Once the file is created. Edit it by right clicking on it and select “Edit”
  • Paste the below code in the file and click on “Save Changes” button available on the right top of the editor page / screen.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /*blackhole
Disallow: /?blackhole
  • That’s it! You’re done.

You’ve successfully secured your wordpress website from known bad-bots and it should help in reducing excessive bandwidth and poor fluctuation website loading speed.

NOTE: It is important to not look for cheap web hosting providers ONLY but a secured one as well. Their basic feature list should include security configuration as well for WordPress which majorly contains BAD BOT protection, Malware Protection, XMLRPC Protection along with Auto Backup etc. You must consider myglobalHOST’s wordpress hosting as it contains all the above features as default for all its wordpress users.