brstefanovic

Advanced Country Blocker helps you secure your WordPress site by restricting access based on the visitor’s geolocation (country) or IP address. Upon activation, the plugin detects the activating admin’s country and automatically sets that as the only allowed country. All other visitors from different countries are blocked, unless they use a secret key parameter to temporarily whitelist their IP. Country detection uses the privacy-friendly ip-api.com service by default but can be switched to a fully offline MaxMind GeoLite2 (or compatible) database file once you configure a local copy.
Key Features:
<ul>
<li>Automatically allows the admin’s country on plugin activation.</li>
<li>Flexible IP-to-country lookups – start with the built-in ip-api.com integration and optionally switch to an offline MaxMind GeoLite2 Country (or compatible) <code>.mmdb</code> database file.</li>
<li>Allowlist or blacklist mode – choose whether the country list acts as an allowlist or blocklist without re-entering countries.</li>
<li>Temporary access via a customizable secret URL parameter (e.g., <code>?MySecretKey=1</code>).</li>
<li>CAPTCHA Challenge – allow blocked visitors to solve a CAPTCHA to gain temporary access (supports Google reCAPTCHA v2/v3, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile).</li>
<li>Real-Time Activity Monitor – live dashboard showing active visitors, recent blocks, and traffic statistics.</li>
<li>Analytics Dashboard – comprehensive charts and statistics about blocked attempts.</li>
<li>Manual blacklisting and safelisting of IPs for added security and to accommodate uptime monitors.</li>
<li>Optional email alerts when new visitors are blocked.</li>
<li>Admin bypass so logged-in admins can always access the site (toggleable in the code).</li>
<li>Detailed logging of blocked attempts in a custom database table, displayed in the WP admin.</li>
<li>Custom response controls – personalise the block page title/message, choose the HTTP status (403, 410, 451) or redirect to any URL.</li>
<li>Automatic log cleanup with configurable retention plus a one-click “Clear Logs” button.</li>
</ul>
Use the plugin settings page (Country Blocker menu in WP admin) to configure the list of allowed countries, blacklisted countries, blacklisted IPs, and whether email alerts are enabled.
<h3>License</h3>
This plugin is open-sourced software licensed under the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html" rel="nofollow ugc">GPLv3 or later</a>.
<h3>External Services</h3>
By default this plugin contacts the ip-api.com geolocation service to detect visitor countries. You can disable all external lookups by switching the IP lookup method to the local MaxMind database in the settings.

Advanced Country Blocker


It's a simple plugin that simply works. 



Also, I made it, so ofc 5 stars. =D


Simply works

An advanced security plugin that blocks website visitors by country, with additional features like blacklisting, logging blocked attempts, admin bypas …

Rick Hellewell

Professional spammers use programs to automate their spamming. The ‘Block Comment Spam Bots’ (BCSB) plugin efficiently blocks their process. No more comment spam!
As no legitimate user will use the professional spammer’s automated process which relies on cURL and WGET commands, real users will never notice the BCSB plugin at work. There are no CAPTCHAS for your visitors to interact with. No silly questions. Just the comment form as designed in any theme.
On the admin side, there are no blacklists, special keys (like Askimet), overloaded spam queues, or overworked databases that store spam comments until you manually delete them.
Install the plugin and that’s it. Invisible, to you and your visitors. The only change you will notice is in your admin area. The list of comments now has a green check next to them. That way you know that comment was made on your website by a real person and was not bypassed by hacking spammers connecting directly to your server.
All that remains is comments made by real people, and while real people can spam, it takes them time and effort. The amount of spam from real people is a lot more manageable than the tsunami from automated spammers, saving you time to concentrate on the important things in life, like your readers, and making connections.
We’ve tested it on multiple websites and it wipes out automated spam completely. If it doesn’t on your site, please let us know.
** Geeky Stuff ** 
…in case you are interested in how it works…
tl;dr – This provides a total and easy solution to comment spam from spam bots.
Comments are processed by the WordPress wp-post-comments.php file. Automated spammers (‘spam bots’) can provide (‘post’) data directly to that page, bypassing any comment processing, by using CURL/WGET commands.
Bypassing the comment form by posting directly (via CURL or WGET commands), is quite easy. Just send the post ID number, and the bot’s fake name and email, and the spammy content. Boom! Comment spam is on your site!
The result is comment spam – and that is not always caught by other comment spam checkers. Even if it is caught by programs such as Akismet, processing that spam takes some server resources, including writing to the database.
This plugin uses several techniques to ‘sense’ a spambot. There are hidden fields that are changed after a delay. There is a delay in displaying the submit button. And it blocks direct access to the WordPress post/processing functions.
The techniques, also used in our standalone “FormSpemmerTrap” (FST) program, and our other anti-spam plugins (like FormSpammerTrap for Comments), are very effective. They use a bit of JavaScript to block spambots – since automated processes via CURL/WGET/etc cannot process JS code.
It’s simple: you install this plugin, activate it, and bot comments will stop. Immediately.
And it doesn’t add any visual impediments to your comments. No reCaptcha things (which many see as a pain). No silly questions (‘what is 2+8’) on the form. Your comment form does not change. Regular users will not notice a difference. But you will. No more spam comments for you!
This is the best solution to block comment spam. We’ve tested it on a site that had 20-40 spam comments a day. With this plugin enabled, the spam comment stopped. Immediately. And there have been none since installing this plugin. ** Not one. Zero.**
The Admin, Comments list page is modified to show a column with a green checkmark icon if the comment was entered by a real person and not a bot. This is an assurance that the comment was not entered via an automated CURL/WGET to the wp-comments-post.php file. A comment that is on the list that does not show the checkmark was done by a bot. But you won’t see those blocked comments with this plugin enabled. They never get into your database. You can hover over the checkmark icon to see the GUID value indicating a person entered the comment.
The plugins ‘Settings’ screen has no settings. You don’t even need to look at the Settings screen. If you do, you’ll see information about the plugin. And there is a CURL command you can use to test the effectiveness of blocking (or not blocking) direct access to the wp-comments-post.php file.
The plugin also adds the hidden GUID field to the comment form after a delay to help block bots that are using the comment form to submit. If the hidden field is not submitted then a bot tried to bypass the comment form. And a short delay happens before the comment submit button is displayed – another bot protection.

Block Comment Spam Bots

A simple to use plugin that stops automated spam. Install and forget, and any automated spam targeting your native WordPress comments is immediately t …

Advanced Country Blocker vs Block Comment Spam Bots