Easiest Way To Block Spambots Crawling?

[CSGODeimos]

Hey guys,

Currently getting bombarded by Yannik, b a i d u and Poneytelecom.eu. I noticed an increased search for a particular manufacturer too. It seems to have been spammed. I tried blocking them through robots.txt, they ignore the robots.txt. I tried blocking them through .htaccess with

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %blahblahblah
RewriteRule .* - [F]

But they just come back with a new IP within seconds.

Any help would be appreciated,

Cheers,

Ash.

[RixStix]

https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1854

Zencart Block Bad Bots plugin.
We have nearly 100 variants of the file in use. Doesn't depend upon IP address.

[CSGODeimos]

https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1854

Zencart Block Bad Bots plugin.
We have nearly 100 variants of the file in use. Doesn't depend upon IP address.

I'll give this a try and see if it works, just added them in.
How is this different to doing it via the .htaccess file though?

[CSGODeimos]

x

This doesn't seem to be working for "rev.poneytelecom.eu"
Which seems to be the one spamming the sites search with random queries.

[RixStix]

How is this different to doing it via the .htaccess file though?

It blocks by matching a portion of the User-Agent string that you use/insert into the file.
We create an additional file for each User-Agent that we choose to block.
I never use the entire User-Agent, only a portion which I happen to consider unique to that User-Agent.

[CSGODeimos]

It blocks by matching a portion of the User-Agent string that you use/insert into the file.
We create an additional file for each User-Agent that we choose to block.
I never use the entire User-Agent, only a portion which I happen to consider unique to that User-Agent.

Okay, which would be Poneytelecom but that's still not working sadly. They're now spamming both websites with search queries.

[RixStix]

Is that part of the User-Agent string or part of the URL?

Suggestions would be
Did you drop the file(s) in the proper zencart folder?
Did you properly edit the 'example' file and/or create you own copy of it?

You will still see them in the cpanel with a 410 error but not in your zencart whosonline.
You didn't say where you are seeing them.

Not a coder here, it would take DrByte (who wrote the code snippet) to say why it is not functioning in v154

[CSGODeimos]

Is that part of the User-Agent string or part of the URL?

Suggestions would be
Did you drop the file(s) in the proper zencart folder?
Did you properly edit the 'example' file and/or create you own copy of it?

You will still see them in the cpanel with a 410 error but not in your zencart whosonline.
You didn't say where you are seeing them.

Not a coder here, it would take DrByte (who wrote the code snippet) to say why it is not functioning in v154

I copied the example file and edited it. Managed to get it to work I think. Did another Google search and the url + ip came up with a forum where people were talking about something called ahref, I copied the example file, edited it appropriately and I haven't had any hits + queries since. I'm watching my Whosonline to see if they come back.