How It Works
This is a new project looking to get itself off the ground. Currently, we have a PHP Kit to ban the bots however we are looking for in-bound links, blog posts, etc. If you can help please email getinvolved@banthebots.website with your URL and we'll setup a reciprocal link.
Firstly, imagine we are one of these bots. They visit a page and click links adhoc then move onto to the next site. Now, imagine a blackhole. This would be a random URL visible only in the website code. On the website, it is not seen anywhere. So who would visit it? Bots not listening to robots.txt of course! Upon visiting the blackhole URL, they are banned from there on in.
01
Stage
ARE U A B0T?!
Bots are supposed to check robots.txt, so search engines like Google and so on would not visit those pages as per specification. With this in mind, we have a way of filtering good bots vs. bad bots.
02
Stage
BLACKHOLE
Now, imagine a blackhole. This would be a random URL visible only in the website code. On the website, it is not seen anywhere. So who would visit it? Bots not listening to robots.txt of course!
03
Stage
SRSLY, THEY'RE FRIED
Firstly, there is a need to protect the blackhole URL so lets introduce the concept of .htaccess and md5(rand(0,10000)). Log the IP of the bot not listening to robots.txt and voila.
Get The Code
PHP Pack
Set of files and documentation for PHP.
PHP Kit
Central API
Coming Soon - Notify us of the bad bots and we will let you know what information we have from all notifications.
Other Languages
Please provide other language support, based on the PHP pack. We need your help!