WordPress Plugin – Settings Guide

Opening the settings panel

After activating the plugin, go to WP Admin → Blockbots in the left sidebar. The settings page has two tabs:

• Free Features — available to all users
• Pro Features — unlocked with an API key

Free Features tab

Protect WP Login Page

Enables bot verification on wp-login.php. When turned on, any visitor trying to access the WordPress login page will go through the same bot check as the rest of your site.

Recommended: Turn on if you receive brute-force login attempts. Default: OFF

Ignore Logged-In Users

When enabled, any visitor who is already logged in to WordPress bypasses the bot check entirely.

Recommended: Keep this ON. If you turn it off, admins and editors will also be checked on every page load, which may cause issues. Default: ON

If you ever get locked out of your site, see Troubleshooting lockout.

Block Known Bad Bots

Blocks all user agents that are not in the whitelist. Any request from a user agent not recognized as a legitimate browser or search engine is automatically rejected.

This setting works through the whitelist — you do not need to manually add blocked agents, only agents you want to allow.

Default: ON (always active)

Whitelist User Agents

A text area where you can add additional user agents that should always be allowed through, one per line. These are added on top of the built-in whitelist (Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.).

Example — allow your uptime monitor:

MyUptimeService
StatusCakeBot

Matching is case-insensitive and uses partial (substring) matching — you only need to enter part of the user agent string.

Your browser's current user agent is displayed below the text area for reference, which is useful if you need to whitelist a specific tool you're using.

Pro Features tab

API Key

Enter your BlockBots API key here to unlock all PRO features. The field shows a masked version once saved (first 4 and last 4 characters visible).

Where to get your key: panel.blockbots.org → your account dashboard.

Once a valid key is entered and saved, all PRO toggles below become active.

Detect All Bots by Signatures

Enables advanced deep bot detection using behavioral analysis and signature matching. Goes beyond simple user-agent checks to catch bots that mimic real browsers.

Recommended: ON

Real-time Cloud Protection

Checks each visitor's IP against a live cloud database of known malicious bots, scrapers, and bad actors. Decisions are made in real time before the page loads.

Recommended: ON

Detect VPN Connection

Identifies visitors connecting through VPN services and blocks them. Useful for ad fraud prevention and reducing fake signups.

Turn this OFF if a significant portion of your legitimate audience uses VPNs (e.g., corporate users, privacy-conscious users).

Detect Proxy Connection

Identifies visitors using proxy servers — including open proxies, datacenter proxies, and residential proxies — and blocks them.

Detect Emulators

Identifies headless browsers and browser automation tools such as Puppeteer, Selenium, and Playwright that are pretending to be real users.

Recommended: ON for most sites.

Show Loading Indicator

Displays an animated loading overlay to the visitor while the cloud verification runs in the background. The overlay disappears automatically once verification completes (typically under 1–2 seconds).

Turning this off means the page appears to hang briefly with no visual feedback. Keeping it on provides a smoother user experience.

Default: ON

Saving settings

After making changes on either tab, click the Save Settings button at the bottom of the page. Settings take effect immediately — no cache clearing or server restart required.

Troubleshooting lockout

If bot protection locks you out of your own site:

1. Connect to your server via FTP or cPanel File Manager.
2. Rename the plugin folder from: /wp-content/plugins/blockbots/ to: /wp-content/plugins/blockbots-disabled/
3. Log in to WordPress normally.
4. Go to WP Admin → Blockbots → Free Features and enable Ignore Logged-In Users.
5. Rename the folder back to blockbots to re-enable the plugin.

Upgrading from Free to PRO

You do not need to install a separate plugin. Simply:

1. Go to WP Admin → Blockbots → Pro Features.
2. Enter your API key in the API Key field.
3. Save settings.

PRO features are activated instantly within your existing installation.