For the people who use .htaccess to block some bad bots, i suggest using this:

 

https://github.com/nerdkey/nerdtools_badbot_iptables

 

Using cron and blocking them faster than through .htaccess. You can add also the big search engine spiders manually to IPTables if you feel they are draining you forum dry.

I always use CloudFlare and no problem with bots. 

Thanks for this info.

Edited April 14, 201510 yr by Afternova