Bad Bot Behavior Spikes Server Traffic

Bad bot behavior spiked the traffic on my VPS server with Dreamhost and made my WordPress sites load slowly on the back end, often losing the database connection. I always install a security plugin on WordPress installs, whether the site gets a lot of traffic or not, but I wasn’t aware of just how much bot traffic can wreck your site performance.

The bad bot traffic was making my VPS max out on resources and slowed all my sites, sometimes rendering 500/503 errors. Talk about frustrating! I checked my internet connection and cleared my cache and disabled plugins, and then I remembered the bad bot issue. I systematically checked the active WordPress installs on my server and installed a bad bot catcher. It didn’t require complex settings, but within minutes of installing it, my server usage went back to normal, and my sites were lightning fast on the admin side.

That wasn’t the end of it.  Here are some things to try:

• Check your log files to find out what’s happening. If the error looks like gobbledygook, feed it into your favorite AI bot to decipher.
• Don’t hesitate to contact support for your hosting company to see if there’s anything they can do on their end or if there are issues you aren’t aware of.
• Install WordFence or another security plugin that systematically blocks known bad bots, login attempts, and malware.
• Harden your site with .htaccess. I find the Gemini coding partner mode helpful for things like this, but be cautious and make sure you have the proper credentials and access to undo something if it renders your site inaccessible.
• Increase limits where you can. I had to increase my PHP memory limit on the server and in my config file.
• Don’t block anything a plugin vital to your site may need!

I had immediate speed improvements with a few minor interruptions. Because I’m on a VPS, I will reboot it in the early morning hours.