Case Study: GuideStar achieves 99.7% uptime and blocks bad bots with Distil Networks

GuideStar Stabilizes Website Availability by Blocking Bad Bots

GuideStar, the world's largest source of nonprofit data, was hit by escalating web scraping and bot attacks that caused monthly brownouts and threatened its 99.7% uptime guarantee. An on‑premise appliance and IP‑blocking proved ineffective, forcing IT to spend about 20 hours a month parsing logs and chasing scrapers while developers lost sleep responding to alerts.

GuideStar implemented Distil Networks’ Cloud CDN reverse‑proxy, which fingerprints and blocks bad bots in real time while allowing legitimate users and good bots through; deployment was a simple DNS change with an easy cloud portal for administration. The result: stabilized site performance with the 99.7% uptime met, roughly 20 hours per month saved, greater visibility into traffic and improved peace of mind for the team.

GuideStar

Shane T. Ward

Data Architect