Drupal Badbehavior Module
Posted on July 5, 2008
Filed Under Drupal, spam
Stop comment spam before it starts by trapping and blocking spambots before they have a chance to post comments.
We use the BadBehavior module to help prevent spambots and scrapers. BadBehavior blocks many of these automated systems by analyzing the HTTP requests made by every hit on the website. It then records every IP that it blocks based on header requests and continues to block that IP in the event that the spammer/scraper comes back later with a different HTTP header. When BadBehavior decides to block a visitor it redirects that visitor to a customizable static HTML page instead of a dynamic database-generated page, thereby saving your CPU resources.
PROS: Badbehavior is lightweight and fairly accurate; it noticeably cuts-down on spammers and scrapers.
CONS: Slightly more difficult to install than most Drupal modules - you must install both the Badbehavior scripts and the Drupal module script for Badbehavior; It’s only fairly accurate - meaning that it will block a small percentage of innocent visitors. You can easily whitelist IP’s of visitors that complain. It’s easy to block yourself (i’ve done it a few times). By default it will block IPN’s from PayPal; It may block other automated scripts such as crawlers from PPC engines.
TIPS: After installing and activating Badbehavior keep a very close eye on the logs. Make sure that you aren’t blocking anything desirable like search engine crawlers, PayPal, etc. Check the Badbehavior logs often.
Even though the list of CONS is bigger than the list of PROS, we still use Badbehavior. Once you get it ‘dialed in’, it’s a great tool in the fight against spammers and scrapers.
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One Response to “Drupal Badbehavior Module”
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I had used the bad behaviour plugin on one of my blog. But then at times it was behaving bad with me. Instead of blocking spammers, for some reason it used to block me and what not. It was terrible and I uninstalled the plugin.