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Latest guideHow SmartKiller Protects Your PHP Site — Step by Step
A plain-English walkthrough of every check SmartKiller runs on each visitor. Understand what happens at each stage and why it matters.
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3 postsCloudflare vs. SmartKiller: Do You Need Both?
They protect different layers. Here's how to decide which one you need — or why using both makes sense for most sites.
Rate Limiting: The Quiet Defence Your Site Probably Doesn't Have
Most sites have no limit on how many times one IP can hammer them. Here's why that's a problem — and exactly how SmartKiller fixes it.
Why it matters
Real concerns, real answers"Bots are hammering my site"
Automated scanners probe every site on the web, looking for vulnerabilities — non-stop, day and night.
"Someone is brute-forcing my login"
Bots try thousands of passwords automatically. Without rate limiting, there's nothing to stop them.
"People abuse my download links"
Scrapers can exhaust your bandwidth in minutes by looping file downloads silently in the background.
"I don't want to break my SEO"
Accidentally blocking Google is a real fear. The wrong HTTP response can get pages deindexed.
How It Works
6 stepsIs this a search bot?
Google, Bing, Yandex and 27 others pass through immediately — no rate limits, no friction.
Is this a known attacker?
Scanners like sqlmap and nikto announce themselves. SmartKiller spots and blocks them instantly.
What's this IP's history?
A quick DB check: trusted, watched, temporarily blocked, or permanently limited.
Is it requesting too much?
Three independent counters track traffic, downloads, and rapid page refreshes separately.
Does the URL look suspicious?
URIs are matched against patterns that flag attack probes no real visitor would ever send.
All clear — visitor gets through.
Legitimate visitors experience nothing. No CAPTCHAs, no delays, no friction whatsoever.
Deployment
2 options🔒 Standalone
- ✓ Any shared hosting with PHP + MySQL
- ✓ Two lines added to your pages
- ✓ All settings in
config.php - ✓ No cloud dashboard needed
🛡 Alongside Cloudflare
- ✓ Cloudflare absorbs volumetric floods
- ✓ SmartKiller handles app-level abuse
- ✓ One line enables real-IP detection
- ✓ Works even if Cloudflare goes offline