Wondering if I can block bots that are downloading images from my site, posting them on tons of blogspot subdomains with a backlink to the image file? This is not a hot linking issue.
Details:
I’m analyzing the backlinks to a domain and there are THOUSANDS of backlinks from blogspot subdomains. These are images that have been uploaded to the blogspot server then link back to the original image URL. They are NOT hotlinked. They have been downloaded off my site and uploaded to theirs.
The image shows just an example of the backlinks that are new to my reports today.
Multiple new backlinks pop up every day from these blogspot sites to this domain. I’m not concerned about the image theft, it’s the backlink spam that’s a huge problem. Hotlink protection is turned on.
Is it possible to block this sort of bot/scraper/scheme with Cloudflare?
It depends on how complex those bots are and how much this is costing to you.
Is it actively hurting the revenue of your site? Reach out to Cloudflare sales and other bot protection vendors to try out their protection and see which one works better.
Is it just annoying you? It might be worth testing whether SBFM stops them. (available on PRO+ plans). However, if your website has APIs or relies on third party vendors, SBFM might break your site.
