Bots

[JoyFreak]

Say your board has been closed for over a month, do the bots eventually give up and leave or do they remain?

 

[djbaxter]

If the site is still accessible, my guess is they will continue to try./

Instead of assuming they will just go away, take measures to block them.

 

[Mendalla]

If your URL is live, even just pointing at the inactive board page, they will come. They aren't that smart, really, just programmed to search the Internet for certain things and then act on them. If they haven't been programmed to detect and remember whether a board is "live" or not, they will probably keep checking. And as soon as you reopen, they will be back. As @djbaxter say, taking measures like IP blocks or add-ons that detect and block bots are about the only way and even that can turn into a game of whack-a-mole.

 

[Mendalla]

I will say that after blocking certain IP blocks per a thread on here, my "Guests" has gone down to the point where there are often fewer of them than, say, search engines' robots (which I'm cool with having, obviously).

 

[Thunder7ga]

I will say that after blocking certain IP blocks per a thread on here, my "Guests" has gone down to the point where there are often fewer of them than, say, search engines' robots (which I'm cool with having, obviously).

Can you post link to that thread?

 

[Ozzy47]

Can you post link to that thread?

Probably this one,

Is your forum being hammered by Bots?

I dont know why but the last few days my forum has been getting hammered by bots. The ones that have been really hitting me are SEMrush - WHY ahref - scrapper I think OVH. I ended up blocking OVH subnet in cpanel because 40 was to much. My forum is very local and very niche. I am not sure...

xenforo.com

 

[Mendalla]

Probably this one,
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/is-your-forum-being-hammered-by-bots.156431/

That's it. It is a good read if you're concerned about this stuff. Thanks @ozzy47.

 

[RandallC]

I would block via Cpanel or htaccess. I use Cloudflare now and seem to have better results also. My traffic is lower now but more quality.