Behavioral Detection
This is a Pro feature. Behavioral detection catches bots that disguise their user-agent as a real browser (e.g., Headless Chrome with a standard Chrome UA).
Enable under Settings → ScraperBlock → Protection → Behavioral Detection.
Detection Signals
ScraperBlock Pro analyses request patterns to identify non-human behaviour:
| Signal | Indicator |
|---|---|
| Navigation pattern | Requests that do not follow human browsing paths (e.g., jumping directly to deep pages without referrer) |
| Request timing | Requests arriving at millisecond intervals, suggesting automation |
| Missing browser signals | Absence of typical browser request headers (Accept-Language, Accept-Encoding patterns) |
| Crawl-like URL patterns | Sequential slug or ID incrementation |
| Session absence | No cookie handling between requests |
When behavioural signals exceed the detection threshold, the IP is flagged and subsequent requests are blocked.
Behavioral detection has a configurable sensitivity. Higher sensitivity catches more bots but risks false positives on legitimate users with unusual configurations (e.g., privacy-hardened browsers). Start at medium sensitivity and adjust based on your block logs.