This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
How to block bots from hitting your website
This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
Bots are basically the fake and automated programs that surf your website to perform a variety of tasks. It is a short form of robots and can damage your site to a great extent. Some of the examples of bots are those that have been blacklisted by the search engines. Some bots visit your websites and send you spam in a large number, while others probe your sites for security vulnerabilities.
Before you block bots from seeing your site, it is important that you host your website on an Apache web server. Plus, your web host must provide you with the facility of ".htaccess overrides, " and you would have to enable it as early as possible. You would have to check the site's raw weblogs and get your site hosted with a commercial web host.
Blocking unwanted bots
It's safe to say that blocking unwanted bots is like you are trying to get rid of the viruses or pests. You can block the bots only when you have fully identified them. First, you have to determine the IP address where the bots are coming from.
For this, you can download your weblog from the web host, uncompress it with the help of archives and open in a plain text editor. Here you can observe whether real humans or bots are visiting your site. The next step is to locate the entries that belong to the bots and look for the user agent strings.
Note the IP addresses used by the bots
Most often, people do not know how to record the IP addresses used by the bots. Be careful while doing this thing as your site can be damaged if you don't block those IPs as early as possible. Some viruses and malware might infect your computers or mobile devices while you are blocking the bots. If you see that the same bots are coming from same or different IP addresses, you must prevent all of them within minutes and refresh your web browser.
Download Your .htaccess File
It is another way to get rid of bots and the fake traffic. You must download your .htaccess files using an FTP or SFTP client. For this, you should visit the top web directory of your website, where the homepage links are located. Here you can find this file and download it at your earliest. If you don't find this file here, then you can locate it somewhere else depending on the FTP program you use.
Open or Create the .htaccess File
Once you have located the file, the next step is to open it and adjust its settings. Create blank documents and paste its data over there. For blocking a specific IP, say, 127.0.0.1, you should add it to your .htaccess file and click the Block button.
To block bots by user agent strings, you should look for the strings with the robot and the ones that contain ordinary letters of the alphabet with no space, slash, and punctuation mark. Once you have located it, you can easily block it within your device and can keep your website safe.