# Bot Trap Link That Blocks Misbehaving Crawlers

> Adds an invisible link that real visitors never see and well-behaved search engines are told to skip; any client that requests it anyway is blocked from the site for 24 hours.

- Type: PHP
- Runs: Run everywhere
- Category: [Security](https://wpide.com/library/category/security/)
- Tags: bots, firewall, crawlers
- Author: WPIDE Team
- Installs: 0
- Updated: 2026-10-28
- Page: https://wpide.com/library/sec-bot-trap-link/

## Code

```php
// Hours a trapped IP stays blocked.
$wpide_trap_hours = 24;

$wpide_trap_ip = function () {
    return isset( $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] ) ? sanitize_text_field( wp_unslash( $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] ) ) : '';
};

add_action( 'init', function () use ( $wpide_trap_ip, $wpide_trap_hours ) {
    if ( is_admin() || is_user_logged_in() || ( defined( 'WP_CLI' ) && WP_CLI ) || wp_doing_cron() ) {
        return;
    }

    $key = 'wpide_trap_' . md5( $wpide_trap_ip() );

    if ( isset( $_GET['wpide-trap'] ) ) {
        set_transient( $key, 1, $wpide_trap_hours * HOUR_IN_SECONDS );
    }

    if ( get_transient( $key ) ) {
        status_header( 403 );
        nocache_headers();
        exit( 'Access denied.' );
    }
}, 1 );

add_action( 'wp_footer', function () {
    echo '<a href="' . esc_url( home_url( '/?wpide-trap=1' ) ) . '" rel="nofollow" tabindex="-1" aria-hidden="true" style="position:absolute;left:-9999px;width:1px;height:1px;overflow:hidden;">&nbsp;</a>';
} );

add_filter( 'robots_txt', function ( $output ) {
    return $output . "\nUser-agent: *\nDisallow: /?wpide-trap=\n";
} );
```

## Notes

The trap URL is disallowed in robots.txt, so Google and Bing will not fall into it; logged-in users are never blocked.

## How to use it

Install the free WPIDE plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpide/), find "Bot Trap Link That Blocks Misbehaving Crawlers" in its snippet library and add it in one click; or create a new PHP snippet in WPIDE (or any code snippets plugin) and paste the code above. More snippets: https://wpide.com/library/