Easily improve site security with WordPress Hardening, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), Login Protection, Vuln...
Free
3M+ installs 4.9★ (8,862)
Blackhole for Bad Bots
Blackhole is a WordPress security plugin that detects and traps bad bots in a virtual black hole, where they are denied access to your entire site.
The facts
- Rating
- 4.7★ from 148
- Active installs
- 30k+
- Price
- Free
- Last updated
- 21 Aug 2026
- Added
- Feb 2016
- Requires WP
- 4.7
- Tested up to
- WP 7.1
- Requires PHP
- 5.6.20
- Downloads
- 975,218
Our analysis
AI-assistedBlackhole for Bad Bots is a WordPress plugin designed to protect your site from bad bots, spammers, and other automated threats. It works by adding a hidden trigger link to your pages, which bad bots that ignore your robots.txt rules will follow, leading to their banishment from your site. This plugin is suitable for WordPress users looking to enhance their site's security against unwanted automated traffic.
The plugin is easy to set up and operates silently in the background, ensuring that legitimate users and good bots are not affected. It includes features such as email alerts for blocked bots, the ability to whitelist IP addresses, and options to customize messages displayed to bad bots.
Best for: WordPress users looking to protect their site from bad bots and automated threats.
What it does well
- ✓Easy to set up and configure
- ✓Does not block major search engines
- ✓Includes email alerts for blocked bots
- ✓Lightweight and fast
- ✓Regularly updated
Where it falls short
- •Not suitable for sites with caching
- •Limited information on specific features
Verdict
Blackhole for Bad Bots offers a straightforward solution for enhancing website security against unwanted automated traffic. It is particularly useful for those who want to maintain site performance while blocking harmful bots.
From the developer
Jeff Starr's own description of Blackhole for Bad Bots, lightly tidied.
✨ Trap bad bots in a virtual black hole
Important: Do NOT use this plugin on sites with caching. Learn more »
👾 Bye bye bad bots..
Bad bots are the worst. They do all sorts of nasty stuff and waste server resources. The Blackhole plugin helps to stop bad bots and save precious resources for legit visitors.
👾 How does it work?
First the plugin adds a hidden trigger link to the footer of your pages. You then add a line to your robots.txt file that forbids all bots from following the hidden link. Bots that then ignore or disobey your robots rules will crawl the link and fall into the trap. Once trapped, bad bots are denied further access to your WordPress site.
I call it the “one-strike” rule: bots have one chance to obey your site’s robots.txt rule. Failure to comply results in immediate banishment. The best part is that the Blackhole only affects bad bots: human users never see the hidden link, and good bots obey the robots rules in the first place. Win-win! 🙂
✨ Add a blackhole trap to help stop bad bots
Important: Do NOT use this plugin on sites with caching. Learn more »
👾 Features
- Easy to set up
- Squeaky clean code
- Focused and modular
- Lightweight, fast and flexible
- Built with the WordPress API
- Works with other security plugins
- Easy to reset the list of bad bots
- Easy to delete any bot from the list
- Regularly updated and “future proof”
- Blackhole link includes “nofollow” attribute
- Plugin options configurable via settings screen
- Works silently behind the scenes to protect your site
- Whitelists all major search engines to never block
- Focused on flexibility, performance, and security
- Email alerts with WHOIS lookup for blocked bots
- Complete inline documentation via the Help tab
- Provides setting to whitelist any IP addresses
- Customize the message displayed to bad bots 😉
- One-click restore the plugin default options
- Does NOT use or require any .htaccess rules
Blackhole for Bad Bots protects your site against bad bots, spammers, scrapers, scanners, and other automated threats.
✨ Not using WordPress? Check out the standalone PHP version of Blackhole!
👾 Whitelist
By default, this plugin does NOT block any of the major search engines (user agents):
- AOL.com
- Baidu
- Bingbot/MSN
- DuckDuckGo
- Googlebot
- Teoma
- Yahoo!
- Yandex
Tagged as
Alternatives
Other plugins for securing a site.
Firewall, Malware Scanner, Two Factor Auth, and Comprehensive Security Features, powered by our 24-hour team....
Free
5M+ installs 4.7★ (4,983)
The best anti-spam protection to block spam comments and spam in a contact form. The most trusted antispam sol...
Free
5M+ installs 4.7★ (1,186)
Loginizer
93Loginizer is a WordPress security plugin which helps you fight against bruteforce attacks.
Free
1M+ installs 4.8★ (1,030)
Safe SVG
93Enable SVG uploads and sanitize them to stop XML/SVG vulnerabilities in your WordPress website.
Free
1M+ installs 4.9★ (79)
Protect your website investment with All-In-One Security (AIOS) – a comprehensive and easy to use security plu...
Free
1M+ installs 4.7★ (1,715)