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Carrie
Carrie

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What to Do When My Website Experiences Huge AI Bots

#aibot #cyberattack #website #security

If your website suddenly starts experiencing huge volumes of traffic that are not from real users, it might be AI bots hitting your site.

These bots can scrape content, perform credential stuffing, or even attempt to exploit vulnerabilities. The consequences can be severe: slower page loads, higher server costs, and in worst cases, downtime or data breaches.

Real Scenario: Facing AI Bot Floods

Last week, I noticed unusual spikes in my website traffic. The analytics dashboard showed hundreds of requests per second coming from seemingly random IP addresses. Pages loaded slower than usual, and some forms were being submitted automatically with gibberish data. I realized these weren’t human users—they were AI bots testing my site continuously.

Checking the server logs, I could see patterns:

  • Repeated access to login pages and forms.
  • Scraping attempts on product and pricing pages.
  • High request rates from specific regions or IP ranges.

Without proper protection, this flood of AI bot activity can quickly overwhelm my server and impact legitimate users.

Comparing Bot Protection: Anubis vs SafeLine

When it comes to defending against AI bots, not all solutions are created equal.

Anubis

  • Provides basic bot mitigation and rate limiting.
  • Mostly cloud-based, easy to deploy.
  • Includes analytics and logs to monitor traffic.
  • Limited customization for advanced or specific bot patterns.
  • Free tier is very restricted, often insufficient for handling sophisticated AI bot attacks.
  • Fully cloud-based, so dependent on Anubis servers for protection.
  • Advanced AI bots may bypass default rules.

SafeLine

  • Self-hosted Web Application Firewall (WAF) that allows you to keep full control of your environment.
  • Offers both free and paid anti-bot features.
  • Free anti-bot rules already cover most common AI bot behaviors, such as automated scraping, brute-force attacks, and credential stuffing.
  • Paid features provide more granular control, but the free tier alone is powerful enough for most websites.

In my experience, SafeLine’s free anti-bot capabilities far outperformed Anubis. Even with just the baseline rules enabled, I was able to block hundreds of suspicious automated requests per second, while legitimate traffic flowed smoothly.

How to Defend Your Site with SafeLine

  1. Enable Basic Anti-Bot Rules

    SafeLine comes with a pre-configured set of anti-bot rules that detect and block automated traffic, even AI-driven bots.

  2. Monitor Traffic

    Use the logging feature to observe which requests are being blocked. You can adjust rules if you notice false positives.

  3. Optional Advanced Configuration

    Free plan allow for more precise rule creation, IP whitelisting, and fingerprint-based detection, but for many websites, the free anti-bot layer is sufficient.

  1. Continuous Review AI bots evolve constantly. Regularly reviewing traffic logs and updating rules ensures that your site remains protected.

Conclusion

Experiencing a surge of AI bots on your website can be alarming, but with the right tools, it’s manageable. While Anubis offers basic cloud-based protection, SafeLine provides powerful self-hosted anti-bot capabilities. Even without paying for advanced features, the free anti-bot rules are robust enough to defend your website effectively.

With SafeLine, I can confidently block AI bots and maintain smooth performance for legitimate visitors, all while keeping control over my own server and data.

SafeLine Website: https://ly.safepoint.cloud/ShZAy9x
Live Demo: https://demo.waf.chaitin.com:9443/statistics
Discord: https://discord.gg/dy3JT7dkmY
Doc: https://docs.waf.chaitin.com/en/home
Github: https://github.com/chaitin/SafeLine

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