![\"Live](\"/VMPSecurity.com/wp-content/themes/VMP/assets/img/whats-new/live-traffic-perf.svg\")
AI and LLM crawlers now have a single firewall switch (default off). Turn it on and known agents — GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, CCBot and Bytespider — are blocked before WordPress loads.
\nIdentity is confirmed by published IP range, forward-confirmed reverse-DNS, or ASN. A faked user-agent is never blocked on its name alone — it falls through to the WAF.
\nBots you have explicitly allowlisted pass first, even with the toggle on. Precedence: allowlist > AI-block > WAF.
\nA new admin panel lists recent AI-crawler blocks with a one-click “Allow this bot” action that moves a bot to your allowlist.
", "buckets": {}, "topic": "bot-ai", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 13}, {"id": 1, "slug": "geo-locked-urls", "version": "2.3.5", "date": "2026-06-21T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Lock any URL to the countries you choose", "summary": "Restrict a single page \u2014 checkout, wp-admin, or a regional page \u2014 to visitors from specific countries, without blocking the rest of your site.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "new-features", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 12}, {"id": 2, "slug": "sitemap-support-seo-plugins", "version": "2.3.5", "date": "2026-06-21T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Search engines can always reach your sitemaps", "summary": "Sitemaps from popular SEO plugins are recognized, so trusted crawlers are never blocked by the firewall.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "fixes", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 11}, {"id": 3, "slug": "export-waf-log-csv", "version": "2.3.5", "date": "2026-06-21T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Export your firewall log to CSV", "summary": "Download the attack log and firewall summary as CSV for reporting, audits, and offline analysis.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "new-features", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 10}, {"id": 4, "slug": "faster-tools-live-traffic", "version": "2.3.5", "date": "2026-06-21T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "A faster Tools page with live traffic", "summary": "The Tools page loads faster, with infinite-scroll live traffic and background reverse-DNS for smoother browsing.", "body": "The Tools page's live-traffic monitor was the slowest screen in the plugin. On a busy site with a cold cache, opening it could hang for several seconds before a single row appeared. We rebuilt how it loads \u2014 now the table renders with the page, and the work that used to block it happens in the background.
\ngethostbyaddr()) for each visitor IP while you waited \u2014 up to ~6 seconds on a cold cache full of fresh attacker IPs.| Live Traffic data load | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| 50 rows | 477 ms | 12 ms |
| 100 rows | 850 ms | 23 ms |
| 200 rows (worst case) | 6,230 ms | ~25 ms |
| Live poll (every 10s) | ~450 ms | 8 ms |
| admin-ajax calls on load | 5 | 0 |
The 6.2 s figure is the worst case \u2014 200 rows on a cold DNS cache; a typical load was about 0.5 s. Honest headline: roughly 97% faster (up to 99% in the worst case).
\nWe also primed the plugin's configuration cache. Reading a setting used to hit the database twice on a cache miss, so a single request could fire hundreds of tiny queries. Now the whole config table loads once per request and every read is served from memory.
\n| Full config read (216 keys) | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Database queries | 432 | 2 |
| Time | 341 ms | 2.9 ms |
That is the full-config worst case; a typical request reading ~30 keys drops from ~60 queries to 2. On a remote database the saving is larger.
\nLive Traffic loads about 97% faster, and every request makes up to ~430 fewer database queries. Measured 2026-06-20.", "buckets": {}, "topic": "general", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 9}, {"id": 5, "slug": "precision-bot-detection", "version": "2.3.4", "date": "2026-06-16T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Sharper bot detection, fewer false blocks", "summary": "Bots are matched by their exact user-agent signature, so real visitors and browsers pass through while threats are stopped.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "bot-ai", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 8}, {"id": 6, "slug": "expanded-trusted-crawlers", "version": "2.3.4", "date": "2026-06-16T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "More trusted crawlers recognized out of the box", "summary": "Google, Bing, ClaudeBot, ChatGPT, Ahrefs and more are recognized, keeping your site visible in search and AI results.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "bot-ai", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 7}, {"id": 7, "slug": "ipv6-trusted-bots", "version": "2.3.4", "date": "2026-06-16T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Trusted-bot verification now covers IPv6", "summary": "Bot verification works across IPv6 networks, with refreshed Anthropic Claude address ranges.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "bot-ai", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 6}, {"id": 8, "slug": "custom-bot-allowlist", "version": "2.3.3", "date": "2026-06-09T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Allowlist ChatGPT and Claude crawlers safely", "summary": "One-click presets for GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot and Claude, each verified against official IP lists refreshed daily.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "bot-ai", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 5}, {"id": 9, "slug": "cancel-running-scans", "version": "2.3.1", "date": "2026-05-21T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Cancel a running scan anytime", "summary": "Stop a scan at the next safe checkpoint \u2014 no more waiting out a long scan lock. Partial results are kept.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "new-features", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 4}, {"id": 10, "slug": "firewall-summary-pagination", "version": "2.3.0", "date": "2026-05-14T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Browse your full attack history", "summary": "The firewall summary is paginated, so you can review the complete attack history instead of just the latest 50.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "new-features", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 3}, {"id": 11, "slug": "bulk-ip-blocking", "version": "2.2.8", "date": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Manage blocked IPs in bulk", "summary": "Bulk-unblock, bulk-ban, and export your blocked IPs to a file for backup or syncing.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "new-features", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 2}, {"id": 12, "slug": "custom-login-url-compat", "version": "2.2.8", "date": "2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Works with custom login URLs", "summary": "The firewall detects login URLs set by plugins like WPS Hide Login, preventing false blocks on your hidden login.", "body": "", "buckets": {}, "topic": "security", "tiers": ["free", "premium"], "media_url": null, "admin_anchor": null, "sort_order": 1}], "next_cursor": null}