This may be an alternative way detect spiders:

PHP Code:
            // Skip API call for known spiders if enabled
            
$user_agent $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
            
$spiders_file DIR_WS_INCLUDES 'spiders.txt';
            
$spiders file($spiders_fileFILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES);

            foreach (
$spiders as $spider) {
                if (
strpos($user_agent$spider) !== false) {
                
$spider_flag true;
                break;
                }
            }
                if (
$spider_flag && $spider_allow == 'true') {

                    
// Check if logging is enabled for allowed spiders
                        
$log_file_name_spiders 'abuseipdb_spiders_' date('Y_m') . '.log';
                        
$log_file_path_spiders $log_file_path $log_file_name_spiders;
                        
$log_message date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . ' IP address ' $ip ' is identified as a Spider. AbuseIPDB API check was bypassed.' PHP_EOL;

                    if (
$spider_log_enabled == 'true') {            
                        
file_put_contents($log_file_path_spiders$log_messageFILE_APPEND);
                    }

                return 
0// Return 0 score for spiders or whatever default value you want