Spam is one of the gravest scourges of the Internet. Useless email clogs the inboxes of millions, if not billions of people every day, hawking everything from mega-vitamins to fake diplomas. Spam originates from spammer\'s mailing lists that can contain millions of email addresses. The addresses are gathered in a variety of ways, including sending out programmed crawlers to download email addresses from your website. This tutorial will show you how to block known spambots from your site.

Step 1: Know the .htaccess file
The .htaccess file allows you to perform mod-rewrite operations on your site. In layman's terms, this allows you to modify your site by blocking certain visitors based on IP, set whether your HTML will parse PHP scripts, determine the name of your directory's allowable home pages (usually index.htm), among other things. We will be using this tutorial to block spambots based on their user agent names.The .htaccess file is available in your home directory. Using FTP, access your home directory (the directory where the index.htm file for your website is located). Scroll toward the bottom of files and there is one called ".htaccess." Download this file to your computer's desktop. Please note that your FTP client must be viewing hidden files to see the .htaccess file. In the Filezilla FTP client, enabling that option comes under: View>Show Hidden Files.

Step 2: Modify the .htaccess file
Open the file with a plain text editor like notepad or your own text editor. Add the following sample code to the bottom of the .htaccess file.
Note: this code also blocks known page rippers.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BlackWidow [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Bot mailto:craftbot@yahoo.com [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ChinaClaw [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^DISCo [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Download Demon [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^eCatch [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EirGrabber [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailSiphon [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Express WebPictures [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ExtractorPro [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EyeNetIE [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^FlashGet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetRight [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go!Zilla [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go-Ahead-Got-It [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GrabNet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Grafula [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^HMView [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^HTTrack [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image Stripper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image Sucker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^InterGET [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Internet Ninja [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JetCar [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JOC Web Spider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^larbin [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LeechFTP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mass Downloader [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^MIDown tool [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mister PiX [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Navroad [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NearSite [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetAnts [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetSpider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Net Vampire [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetZIP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Octopus [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline Explorer [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline Navigator [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^PageGrabber [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Papa Foto [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pcBrowser [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^RealDownload [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ReGet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Siphon [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SiteSnagger [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SmartDownload [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperHTTP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Surfbot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^tAkeOut [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Teleport Pro [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^VoidEYE [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web Image Collector [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web Sucker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebAuto [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebCopier [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebFetch [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebReaper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebSauger [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website eXtractor [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebStripper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebWhacker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebZIP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Wget [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Widow [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Xaldon WebSpider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Zeus RewriteRule ^.* - [F]

Save your .htaccess file. What the above code does is check the header for the spambot, blocking it if it matches.

Step 3: Upload your .htaccess file
Upload the .htaccess file back to the folder you downloaded it from. .Htaccess files work for the directory they are in and all sub-directories. If you want to have a different set of rules for your /album folder for instance, just upload another .htaccess file to /album.