If you’re concerned about bots, spammers, and crawlers on your website or blog, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll walk you through the best ways to block these online nuisances.
If you’re not familiar with the term, a bot is a type of software that can perform tasks on internet-connected devices without human intervention. For example, a search engine bot automatically queries the internet for information and returns relevant results. Other bots can perform simple tasks such as tweeting or sending email.
On the other hand, spiders are a type of bot that crawls through internet pages in order to index them. They are often used by search engines to crawl webpages and return search results.
How bots access webpages?
It is not uncommon for bots to access your website in order to read and analyze it. While this may sound like a security risk, most bots are harmless and perform crawls for legitimate reasons. This may include:
Crawling your site in order to index it for search engines like Google or BingAccessing your site for market research purposesCrawling your site for content scraping purposesThere are also malicious bots that may access your site for malicious purposes such as data mining, email spamming, or DDoS attacks.
What are user agents?
Every time you visit a website, your device sends a piece of information called a “user agent” to let the server know who you are. These user agents vary widely between different devices and operating systems. One common way to tell what device someone is using is by looking at their user agent string. The below image shows an example of a user agent string:This string tells us that this device is running on iOS 9 and has the Safari browser. It also tells us that this is a mobile device with a screen resolution of 320×480 pixels. Finally, it gives us information about the device maker (Apple) and model (iPhone 6).By looking at user agents, you can get a good idea of what type of devices are accessing your content and how they are doing so (desktop computer, tablet, mobile phone). In addition to providing helpful insights into your audience, user agents can also help you block unwanted visitors from accessing your website or blog. For example, if you’re running an e-commerce store and you see that a lot of people are accessing your site from mobile phones,
This API will allow you to detect any Bot, Crawler, or Spider via their User Agent. Prevent malicious behavior on your applications!
To make use of it, you must first:
1- Go to Bot Detector Via User Agent API and simply click on the button “Subscribe for free” to start using the API.
2- After signing up in Zyla API Hub, you’ll be given your personal API key. Using this one-of-a-kind combination of numbers and letters, you’ll be able to use, connect, and manage APIs!
3- Employ the different API endpoints depending on what you are looking for.
4- Once you meet your needed endpoint, make the API call by pressing the button “run” and see the results on your screen.
