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Developer details method to block AI bots by over 80% using honeypot

By PulseAugur Editorial · [2 sources] ·

A developer has detailed a method to block unwanted AI bot traffic from websites, reducing it by over 80%. The technique involves creating a hidden "honeypot" directory on a website and instructing bots via robots.txt not to access it. When a bot attempts to access this directory, its IP address is logged and subsequently banned using .htaccess rules, effectively preventing further access. AI

IMPACT Provides a practical method for website owners to mitigate unwanted AI bot crawling and data scraping.

RANK_REASON The item describes a specific technical method for blocking bots, which is a type of tool or technique.

Read on Mastodon — mastodon.social →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 2 sources. How we write summaries →

Developer details method to block AI bots by over 80% using honeypot

How we ranked this

Signal score
15 / 100
Composite score across the factors below. Higher = stronger signal that this story matters right now.
Newsworthiness bucket
Tool
The item describes a specific technical method for blocking bots, which is a type of tool or technique.
Source corroboration
2 independent sources
Multiple independent publishers reporting the same story raises confidence that it's real and newsworthy.
Topics
product, other
Editorial topic classification. Feeds into how the story surfaces on /topic/<slug> hub pages and into the per-entity coverage mix.
AI-industry relevance
High
Clearly on-topic for AI-industry coverage.
Story freshness
Breaking (< 6h)
Fresh story with cross-source coverage still developing. Ranking may shift as more sources report.

Full methodology in our editorial standards.

COVERAGE [2]

  1. Mastodon — mastodon.social TIER_1 English(EN) · Edent ·

    🆕 blog! “Blunt Banhammer Blocks Basic Bots Ballistically” I cut bot traffic to my site by over 80% with a simple trap. Last month, my hobby website OpenBenches.

    🆕 blog! “Blunt Banhammer Blocks Basic Bots Ballistically” I cut bot traffic to my site by over 80% with a simple trap. Last month, my hobby website OpenBenches.org transferred more than 2.5TB of data to visitors. As much as I'd like to think the site is enormously popular, it loo…

    LINKS shkspr.mobi/…/blunt-banhammer-blocks-basi…
  2. Mastodon — mastodon.social TIER_1 English(EN) · [email protected] ·

    Blunt Banhammer Blocks Basic Bots Ballistically https:// shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/11/blunt -banhammer-blocks-basic-bots-ballistically/ I cut bot traffic to my site

    Blunt Banhammer Blocks Basic Bots Ballistically https:// shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/11/blunt -banhammer-blocks-basic-bots-ballistically/ I cut bot traffic to my site by over 80% with a simple trap. Last month, my hobby website OpenBenches.org transferred more than 2.5TB of data to vis…

    LINKS openbenches.org perishablepress.com/blackhole-bad-bots developers.google.com/…/intro httpd.apache.org/…/htaccess.html gnu.org/…/agpl-3.0.en.html github.com/…/collect.php developer.mozilla.org/…/X-Forwarded-For

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