Google doing Neilo AB testing of my site?

Question

I run a Wordpress site and a few years ago I installed the Nielo A/B testing plugin for a trial run. After awhile, I removed the plugin.

Today, while reviewing my weblogs I found the following entry that shouldn't be there. It appears that "Google" is attempting to access an "nelio-ab-testing..." directory on my site. The entry is repeated 8 times per attempt, all with Google IP address.

I'm not sure if this is something left over from the plugin that I removed, or if it's part of Google Analytics, or just what. I've checked the apps that I have "given" permission to under my Google account and it doesn't appear to be there. Does anyone know how I can disable this on Google or how to remove it?

35.243.23.14 - - [05/Apr/2020:16:53:13 -0700] "GET /nelio-ab-testing-sync-results/6120029267689472/4973123413999616 HTTP/1.1" 404 9830 "-" "AppEngine-Google; (+http://code.google.com/appengine; appid: s~nelioabtesting)"

Answer 1

To me, the entry in your server log looks like Nielo's servers trying to contact your WordPress install to synchronize data.

The reason it says "AppEngine-Google" is that Nielo happened to choose Google App Engine as a platform to run their server code.

Since it sounds like you are done with the plugin, I would make sure that if you have a Nielo account, you check to see that your WordPress site is removed from that account, or close the account altogether.

All that being said, since the plugin has been uninstalled, and your website is now properly rejecting the bot with a 404 error for that path, the bot attempts are harmless so I wouldn't worry about them at all. If their bot is smart, it will stop trying after getting endless 404 errors for days/weeks.