WindCodex ScraperBlock Pro
Overview
ScraperBlock Pro includes everything in the free ScraperBlock plugin and adds IP allow and block lists, geo-blocking, block scheduling, WooCommerce catalog protection, behavioral detection of headless and empty user agents, honeypot URLs, content poisoning, email alerts, an analytics dashboard with CSV export, and multisite support.
Request Pipeline
Each front-end request is checked in this order. The first check that blocks ends the request with 403 Forbidden (or a decoy page for content poisoning, or 429 Too Many Requests for rate limits) and is logged.
Incoming request
│
├-[1]--→ Protection disabled for this post/page? ---→ allow
├-[2]--→ IP on the allowlist? -----------------------→ allow
├-[3]--→ Outside scheduled active hours? ------------→ allow
├-[4]--→ IP on the blocklist? ------------------------→ 403
├-[5]--→ Honeypot link followed (IP trapped 1 hour)? → 403
├-[6]--→ Visitor's country blocked? -----------------→ 403
├-[7]--→ Empty or "headless" user agent over limit? -→ 403
├-[8]--→ User agent on the blocklist? ---------------→ 403 or decoy
└-[9]--→ Not logged in and over the rate limit? -----→ 429
(WooCommerce catalog pages use their own limit)ScraperBlock Pro deactivates the free plugin when you activate it. Both use the same settings, so your configuration carries over. The free plugin doesn't need to be installed.
Requirements
| Requirement | Minimum |
|---|---|
| WordPress | 6.9 |
| PHP | 7.4 |
| Apache (for .htaccess blocking) | 2.4+ |
| Cloudflare or a country header | Required for geo-blocking |
Free vs. Pro Comparison
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| 60+ bot user-agent blocking and custom user agents | ✅ | ✅ |
| Allow AI search bots option | ✅ | ✅ |
| Robots.txt directives | ✅ | ✅ |
| Meta noai / noimageai tags | ✅ | ✅ |
| Per-page control | ✅ | ✅ |
| .htaccess blocking | ✅ | ✅ |
| Request log | Last 50 | Last 5,000 + CSV export |
| IP allowlist and blocklist | ✗ | ✅ |
| Geo-blocking (Cloudflare country header) | ✗ | ✅ |
| Block scheduling | ✗ | ✅ |
| WooCommerce catalog protection | ✗ | ✅ |
| Behavioral detection (empty / headless user agents) | ✗ | ✅ |
| Honeypot trap URL | ✗ | ✅ |
| Content poisoning (decoy page) | ✗ | ✅ |
| Email alerts | ✗ | ✅ |
| Analytics dashboard and live event feed | ✗ | ✅ |
| Multisite: shared settings | ✗ | ✅ |
| Automatic updates and priority support | ✗ | ✅ |