If you run WordPress on Windows (and who doesn’t?) and have the need to block specific user agents (bots, crawlers, browsers) below is a decent way I’ve found that uses rewriting rules and works along side the needed WordPress rules:
Adding this rule to your web.config will block the request from the specified agent(s):
<rule name="RequestBlockingRule1" stopProcessing="true">
<match url=".*" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="agent1|agent2|agent3" />
</conditions>
<action type="CustomResponse" statusCode="403"
statusReason="Forbidden: Access is denied."
statusDescription="You do not have permission to view this page." />
</rule>
Continue reading “IIS / WordPress – Blocking User Agents using Rewrite Rules”