84
Blackhole for Bad Bots
A clever honeypot that might accidentally trap Googlebot.
HealthyGrowing
84/100
This clever bot trap works well but risks blocking legitimate search engines when used with caching plugins.
Active installs
~35,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 30k+
Rating
4.7★
148 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+105%
Growing fast
122 → 251 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORreviews unevenly distributed over time
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Growing fast · +105% in the last year
122/day a year ago→251/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayBlackhole for Bad Bots is a well-liked security plugin with a clever concept and easy setup, but it carries a meaningful caveat around caching plugin compatibility that can cause legitimate crawlers — including Google — to be blocked, with real SEO consequences.
What people like
- +Easy to set up with minimal configuration required×3
- +Effective at trapping and blocking unwanted bots×4
- +Works well alongside other security tools like BBQ Firewall and Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode×2
- +Unobtrusive and invisible to normal site visitors
Common complaints
- −Compatibility issues with caching plugins (LSCache, SiteGround Optimizer) can cause legitimate crawlers including Google to be blocked, leading to SEO ranking drops×3
- −Reported problems when used alongside Cloudflare
- −Failed to block AI bots such as Amazon bot and Claudebot, leaving sites exposed to high-volume scraping
- −The plugin's hidden-element coding approach can trigger phishing or security flags from third-party scanners
- −After uninstallation, the plugin continued generating orphaned pages in Google Search Console for months
- −Activity logs are not accessible to site admins without a paid upgrade, which users find restrictive
- −Did not function correctly on Nginx in testing
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.69★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.70★
- 6%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 25% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-10-182025-02-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 148 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-04-04★★★★★Cloudflare Compatibilityathinaok
- 2025-11-19★★★★★Does nothing!ron441241
- 2025-04-22★★★★★Great pluginKrzysztof
- 2025-03-18★★★★★Be very careful …wordwiseweb
- 2025-02-21★★★★★Beware!silversky99
- 2025-02-16★★★★★Together with BBQ Firewall the best plugin for WordPress security!nmrockswp
- 2024-09-26★★★★★Long Sought, Long Needed Plugin. Well done!cole1969
- 2024-09-23★★★★★Didn't work, and too many features gatekeptabctaylor
- 2024-08-20★★★★★Works perfectly, prevents Malware injectionMichael Galli
- 2024-07-19★★★★★Not workinghangist
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
207
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
224
Prior 7-day baseline
159
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
705
Mean release-day peak (30d)
207
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-7.6%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
25%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
1.67
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
89%
5★ share in analyzed sample
6%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.67 → 4.69★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered