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.
4.7(148 reviews)
·30K+ active installs·Updated 2 weeks agoAs of April 2026, Blackhole for Bad Bots is a WordPress bots plugin with 30K+ active installations and a 4.7/5 rating from 148 reviews. It has been downloaded 887K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 4.7+ and PHP 5.6.20+. Available on WordPress.org since 2016. Actively maintained — updated within the last month. Downloads are down 79% this week. Support resolution rate: 100%. Top alternative: BBQ Firewall – Fast & Powerful Firewall….
4.7/5148 reviews
30K+active installs
100%resolved
10 yearssince 2016
Overview
✨ 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…
Screenshots
Ratings & Reviews
4.7148 reviews
5 ★
134
4 ★
3
3 ★
4
2 ★
1
1 ★
6
Recent Reviews
Cloudflare Compatibility
by athinaok·3 days ago
Plug in has many problems with Cloudflare
Does nothing!
by ron441241·4 months ago·1 reply
Great plugin
by Krzysztof·11 months ago·1 reply
Hi. It seems to be doing its job. I am happy with it. Thanks 🙂
[Blackhole for Bad Bots]
Be very careful …
by wordwiseweb·1 year ago·4 replies
I appreciate the protection Blackhole for Badbots has given me for a couple of years, but suddenly I’m getting emails from Google saying their crawlers have been blocked and, within two days, my ranking has plummeted.
I know the issue is the caching, and there are posts online about this for when the plugin’s used alongside Siteground’s Optimizer, but after obeying the instructions (there’s only one type of caching you’re supposed to use, apparently), after a lull of a week or so and getting a Google validation fix confirmation, I’m getting the Google emails again. Nothing’s changed in that time?
I’m obeying the instructions, but still Google is being blocked? Why on earth would it block Google? Yes, I could stop using all caching, but then my site gets slower and that will also affect my ranking.
I’ve had to deactivate the plugin, and I won’t be using it again. I’m hoping my Google ranking quickly recovers, as I spotted the drop fairly quickly. This will cost me money …
Beware!
by silversky99·1 year ago·1 reply
More than 6 months after deletion its still generating trash pages on Google Search Console(thousands). Even after cleaning everything. Still generating…
Download Trends
Today: 305Yesterday: 393This week: 3KPeriod total: 141K
Compatibility
| WordPress | 4.7+ requiredTested up to 7.0 |
| PHP | 5.6.20+ required |
Version Adoption
v3.8
63.2%
v3.7
27.6%
Other
9.3%
Top Alternatives to Blackhole for Bad Bots
Frequently Asked Questions
Changelog
If you like Blackhole for Bad Bots, please take a moment to give a 5-star rating. It helps to keep development and support going strong. Thank you!
👾 Get Blackhole Pro to unlock powerful features like threshold, bot blacklist, custom triggers, and advanced Bad Bot Log.
Contributors
Plugin data sourced from WordPress.org. Analysis and metrics by PluginSift.