WebDecoy Bot Detection - Block AI Crawlers, Spam Bots & Card Testing

A team of security engineers who do bot detection full time, across more than WordPress. The detection engine in this plugin is the same one that runs in our Node.js SDK, our Cloudflare edge validator, and the WebDecoy cloud platform; the WordPress rules engine is kept byte-for-byte compatible with the Node implementation by a shared test suite. The plugin is free and fully functional because detection is the half of the problem we give away: the paid product is the network response built on top of it.

For most sites, yes. WebDecoy protects comment, login, and registration forms with invisible honeypot fields, behavioral scoring, and a background proof-of-work challenge, so real visitors never solve a puzzle, pick out traffic lights, or click a checkbox. If a request looks suspicious, the challenge runs silently in the browser instead of interrupting the person. And unlike reCAPTCHA, nothing about your visitors is sent to a third party.

Yes. Comment, login, and registration forms get invisible honeypot fields and behavioral scoring out of the box, all on by default. The plugin starts in monitor mode, recording what it would have done; switch blocking on and spam that scores above your threshold is challenged or blocked before it reaches your moderation queue.

No. WebDecoy runs entirely inside WordPress, so it protects sites on any host with no DNS changes, no proxy, and no subscription. If you were weighing WAF options, it works as a WAF alternative at the application layer, and it sees things a network WAF cannot: which form was submitted, which coupon was applied, which hidden trap was touched. It also works fine behind Cloudflare or another proxy if you already have one. On paid plans the relationship inverts: WebDecoy can push confirmed attackers to your Cloudflare or AWS WAF so they are blocked at the edge before reaching WordPress at all.

Firewalls match requests against known-bad signatures, and scanners look for infections after the fact. WebDecoy adds a third approach: deception. It plants traps (hidden paths, invisible links, decoy files, a decoy coupon) that no legitimate visitor can touch, so when a trap fires there is no doubt. It works alongside your existing firewall or scanner, and on paid plans it can push confirmed attackers to Cloudflare or AWS WAF.

No. WebDecoy works 100% locally without any API key or account. All detection, blocking, rate limiting, form protection, and WooCommerce protection works out of the box. The API key is only needed for optional cloud features like IP reputation and VPN detection.

WebDecoy Cloud adds threat intelligence feeds (AbuseIPDB, VPNAPI, MaxMind), centralized monitoring across multiple sites, indefinite detection history, automated response features like webhooks and email alerts, and WAF integrations: confirmed attackers can be pushed to Cloudflare or AWS WAF so they're blocked at the edge, before ever reaching your server. Compare plans.

No. WebDecoy adds less than 5ms of latency to requests. Server-side detection runs in milliseconds. The client-side scanner loads asynchronously with the defer attribute and doesn't block page rendering.

WebDecoy is designed to minimize false positives. You can adjust the sensitivity and blocking threshold. Start with "Log only" mode to monitor before enabling blocking. Good bots (Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.) are automatically recognized.

Yes. WebDecoy works alongside popular caching plugins. The client-side scanner runs after page load, and server-side checks happen before caching.

WebDecoy automatically recognizes and allows 60+ legitimate bots including Googlebot, Bingbot, and other search engine crawlers. Good bot verification uses reverse DNS lookup. Your SEO won't be affected.

Yes. WebDecoy identifies AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Bytespider, and others) and lets you block them with one setting, without touching robots.txt and without affecting search engine crawlers. Enable this in Settings > Good Bots.

Yes. WebDecoy includes specialized carding protection for WooCommerce including checkout velocity limiting, card testing detection, and automatic fraud blocking. Compatible with both classic checkout and WooCommerce Blocks.

Without an API key, the plugin makes zero external connections: visitors' browsers never contact third-party servers, and neither does your server. Chart.js (admin charts) is bundled with the plugin. All detection data stays on your server, and detection logs are automatically cleaned up after 30 days. When you optionally connect WebDecoy Cloud, all communication is encrypted over HTTPS (see External Services below).

When a suspicious visitor is detected and your block action is set to "Challenge", they see a checkbox widget. Clicking it starts a SHA-256 puzzle that solves in the background (typically under 1 second for humans). Bots and automation tools take much longer or fail entirely. No external CAPTCHA service is involved.