Features
WELCOMEDeveloped by 10-year WP astronaut Jeff Starr, Blackhole Pro is a WordPress security plugin that automatically detects and traps bad bots in a virtual blackhole, where they are blocked from your site.
Bad bots are the worst. They do all sorts of nasty stuff and waste server resources. Blackhole Pro helps to stop bad bots and save server resources for legit visitors. In the words of Admiral Ackbar:
“It’s a Trap!”
Bye bye bad bots.. Blackhole Pro adds a hidden link to your pages. You add a rule to your robots.txt that instructs bots to stay away. Good bots will obey the rule, but bad bots will ignore it and follow the link.. right into the blackhole trap. Once trapped, bad bots are blocked and denied further access to your entire site. Benefits include: Stops leeches, scanners, and spammers Saves server resources for humans and good bots Improves traffic quality and overall site security
Full control Customize just about everything: Threshold level Email alerts Warning message Blocked message Blackhole trigger link Custom redirects HTTP Status codes
Complete Inline Docs Get complete information with a click: Documentation on every screen Easy to access from the Help tab Get complete infos, tips, and more Keeps plugin pages nice and tidy
Bad Bot Log Full-featured UI for managing blocked bots: Complete bot data: IP, request, user agent, etc. Filterable search, custom sorting, paged results Automatic Geo/IP location lookups for each bot Displays total number of blocked hits Delete selected bots with a click Add bots manually via IP address
Email alerts Stay aware with Blackhole email alerts: Choose from several types of alerts Alerts include IP and complete Whois Lookup Receive an email alert for each blocked bot Customize the email template with shortcodes Set adresses for both “To” and “From” headers
Customize the Blackhole Customize how your site responds to bad bots: Choose the Warning Message or create your own Choose the Blocked Message or create your own Choose a custom URL to redirect blocked bots Exclude the trigger link on any post or page Customize the Blackhole trigger link
Whitelist good bots Advanced control over whitelisted (allowed) bots: Popular search engines always allowed access Choose a custom URL for whitelisted bots Whitelist good bots by User Agent Whitelist good bots by IP Address Whitelist entire ranges of IPs
More Features Blackhole Pro is meticulously crafted: Built with the WP API Works with other security plugins Protects automatically, silently Automatic honeypot spider trap Developed for optimal performance One-click restore default plugin options Records number of times each bot is blocked Set how many warnings before bots are blocked Auto-import data from free version of Blackhole
Use a caching plugin? Check the list of compatible cache plugins »
Check out full screenshots of Blackhole Pro:
Free vs Pro
Wondering about the differences between Blackhole Bad Bots (the free version) and Blackhole Pro?
| Feature | Free | Pro |
| Strong protection against bad bots | ✓ | ✓ |
| Works with SSL/HTTPS | ✓ | ✓ |
| Works on any WP-capable server (e.g., Apache, Nginx, Windows) | ✓ | ✓ |
| .htaccess NOT required! | ✓ | ✓ |
| Works great with BBQ Pro | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lightweight, fast and flexible | ✓ | ✓ |
| Works with other security plugins | ✓ | ✓ |
| One-click restore default settings | ✓ | ✓ |
| Compatible with a growing list of cache plugins | ✓ | ✓ |
| Option to disable for logged-in users | ✓ | |
| Threshold control (number of allowed hits) | ✓ | |
| Custom email alerts | ✓ | |
| Custom messages for blocked bots | ✓ | |
| Custom redirect for blocked bots | ✓ | |
| Custom blackhole trigger links | ✓ | |
| Complete inline documentation | ✓ | |
| Whitelist bots by User Agent | ✓ | |
| Whitelist bots by IP Address | ✓ | |
| Redirect whitelisted bots | ✓ | |
| Set custom HTTP Status Code | ✓ | |
| Full-featured Bot Log with paging, sorting, and field search | ✓ | |
| Add bad bots directly to the Bad Bot Log | ✓ | |
| Geo/IP location lookups for each bad bot | ✓ | |
| Logs number of blocked hits for each bot | ✓ | |
| No advertisements | ✓ |
Awesome space images courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.
