41
votes
Prevent Google from thinking my own bot is faking traffic on my website
Google has no way of knowing when you hit your own site with your own bot. Google can't see anything that happens on your server.
Even if you use Google Analytics, your bot won't show up in it. ...
- 99.4k
15
votes
Prevent Google from thinking my own bot is faking traffic on my website
Google doesn't care about your traffic. Even if you use Google Analytic, Google never uses that data for search engine ranking algorythm.
Gary Illyes from Google says in a tweet
We don't use anything ...
- 1,136
11
votes
Accepted
Was user-agent identification used for some scripting attack techique?
This is a Joomla 0 Day Attack. Information found here: https://blog.sucuri.net/2015/12/remote-command-execution-vulnerability-in-joomla.html
This is not a vulnerability test despite the __test. It is ...
- 32.9k
4
votes
Was user-agent identification used for some scripting attack techique?
The IP address that you linked does not resolve to a Google hostname therefore it is not Google. The person or bot is scanning your site for vulnerabilities. The first one is attempting to find a ...
- 33.1k
3
votes
Prevent Google from thinking my own bot is faking traffic on my website
Google won't know about traffic to your website unless the 'bot (or human user's web browser) does TWO things:
Google Analytics asked you to install some Javascript on your web pages. The browser or ...
3
votes
Which server status code is appropriate for ugly bots scanning server for vulnerabilities
I think 404 does make sense in some ways. If an undesirable walks up to your house, sure you could shout at them to leave, but it might make more sense just to not answer the door. This has the added ...
- 16.4k
2
votes
Google Analytics traffic surge from China, not real visitor, Baidu?
You can check your hostname to see if there's some other website mistakenly put your GA code on his/her page.
The other possibility is that someone in China copied your page without changing your GA ...
- 773
2
votes
Was user-agent identification used for some scripting attack techique?
Additionally to other answers, note that the fact that this attack apparently worked suggests you are running an old, insecure version of PHP. A fix for the bug that this attack exploits was released ...
- 131
2
votes
What is adding p, subid, and uid variables to the query string of a site url?
These are all used in tracking URLs.
A SubID is a string of alphanumeric characters generated at the end of a redirect URL, which records a user-defined variable. uid is Unique Identifier. Check if ...
2
votes
Accepted
Will forbidding "bad bot" user agents via .htaccess add a layer of protection against email address scraping beyond the existing captcha?
To answer your question, no, I don't think adding that many lines in htaccess etc. is a good solution. As you suspected you only block already detected bots.
Its more efficient to use a list like ...
- 371
2
votes
Is it safe to BAN ASN from Hosting providers?
For anyone else reaching this question, in the future I would say it depends. For example, if your servers provide an API for thirdparty apps blocking an entire ASN might be a very bad idea.
- 121
2
votes
Accepted
increasing number of malicious login attempts- what to do?
These are 2 methods I use. There may be other better ones but these are 2 quick ones that I've used successfully.
Method 1
You could enable 2 Factor Authentication.
This is a quick solution for ...
- 136
2
votes
How can I prevent DOS 404 attacks involving non-existent URLs?
Using CloudFlare is a great way to mitigate attacks. You can look for patterns in the attacks and filter them using CloudFlare's tools. Perhaps a common user agent, IP block, or the target urls they ...
- 2,273
2
votes
Site search form getting spammed, but by Google IP
You should disallow your site search in robots.txt:
User-Agent: *
Disallow /search.php
Whenever you have an infinite URL space like this, you don't want Googlebot to try to crawl it. It can generate ...
- 99.4k
1
vote
Accepted
How to prevent unknown attack at the time of Let's Encrypt update
Since the attack seems to be tied to the certificate renewal frequency, you could try disabling the Let's Encrypt certificate and using the one Cloudflare provides for free. See if that helps you.
- 2,273
1
vote
Website access logs showing abnormal number of single requests from unique ips
First thing is to identify the most common single request visits and see how/if they relate to your site.
Causes of Single-Request Visits:
Scrapers: Bots designed to harvest content might visit a ...
- 51
1
vote
Prevent Google from thinking my own bot is faking traffic on my website
I will add a contrarian opinion regarding whether or not Google uses GA for SEO purposes. I have had at least two experiences where negative bots hit my website that impacted rankings. Not enough to ...
- 3,300
1
vote
How do I identify and block a bot from my site?
There is no simple solution, and it depends on the source of traffic - and indeed (from apractical POV) may not be possible on the scale you are talking about.
Very often the browser identifier will ...
- 8,296
1
vote
Robots visitors to my home page inflating Google Analytics stats
As @StephenOstermiller points out, this is likely spam traffic which doesn't ever come anywhere near your website. People are simply sending data to Analytics using your tracking ID. The idea is that ...
- 2,297
1
vote
Why is my regional website being hit by thousands of Chinese IP addresses?
Does sound like a bot / DDOS traffic. It doesn't matter that the site isn't important to you... these attacks aren't always targeted manually.
Some bot thought you were a good target and you're on ...
- 166
1
vote
Accepted
Is it safe to BAN ASN from Hosting providers?
Is it safe to ban entire ASN's if they belong to hosting providers?
Yes.
These are not users. Assigned IP addresses are assigned in blocks that are either subscriber, such as DSL customers, or non-...
- 32.9k
1
vote
Random 700% increase on a website hit
You can move your website to Cloudflare DNS, and let Cloudflare DNS handle the bots and it's detection.
The free plan of Cloudflare can do the job.
Peace of mind for sure.
Good luck.
1
vote
Accepted
Why are bots or servers crawling non- (NEVER) existent URLs and how can I stop this?
If you are simply trying to remove them from being seen in Google Analytics, Here is an Article that explains how to filter them out. However, This Article has information on why you shouldn't just ...
- 181
1
vote
How to block direct traffic spam in Google Analytics?
I wouldn't call it spam; it is more like bot traffic.
The first thing you should do if you haven't done it already is to enable the option Bot filtering in the view configuration in your Admin ...
1
vote
Where can I redirect exploit scanning bots?
I guess you want to prevent bad bots from scanning your website(s). I think you should do it from htaccess. It will prevent bad scanning bots for visiting your website and return a 403 Forbidden. you ...
- 665
1
vote
Wordpress security from bots
Block IP Addresses
If you find that certain IP addresses are hitting your site over and over, you can block them individually in .htaccess
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from 1.1.1.1
Deny from 2.2.2.2
Deny ...
- 99.4k
1
vote
What are these strange Speed_Bump requests in my logs? Malware, nuisance, nothing?
There is not much you can do about it. Log records like these happen all the time no matter what sort of site you host. There are a number of reasons...
Site Profiling - Some malicious users will ...
- 10.2k
1
vote
What could be causing heavy bursts of traffic from single IP address to old inactive URL
By and large these appear to be innocent. From the looks of things other than the search post which appears as though it is more than likely legitimate either the user is refreshing the page ...
- 10.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible