List of live referral spam - let's ban those spammy bots
Hello everybody.
Lately i've noticed few spam referral bots attacking my site. This traffic will mess up your google analytics reports (each hit to your site will bump up your bounce rate - which is bad in this case)
and it also uses some black hat SEO moves :
After each of those hosts bounces from your site it leaves footprint in your access log, which google uses to gauge your traffic. - again bad for your site.
I looked up how to deal with it and the best way is to block their access from your site by editing file httpdocs/.htaccess through FTP connection or file manager plugin
Just edit .htaccess file ->
add those lines (don't delete anything from that file) substitute OFFENDING.HOST with real host name like copyrightclaims.org in lines below
## SITE REFERRER BANNING
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} OFFENDING.HOST [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} OFFENDING.HOST
RewriteRule .* - [F]
So after few days my list got bigger. I decided to post it here for anyone to help when someone will encounter the same problem.
I also would like to ask YOU all to add your own caught bots that didn't attack my site yet. ;)
Let's build bigger list and everybody can just install it on all your sites.
So add your bad hosts in comments please. Let's help each other out.
I will try to keep it up to date every once in a while.
Here is my list so far:
Updated: 2015.12.01
## SITE REFERRER BANNING
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} 7makemoneyonline.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} 7makemoneyonline.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} adf.ly [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} adf.ly
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} alibestsale.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} alibestsale.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} black-friday.ga [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} black-friday.ga
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} buttons-for-website.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} buttons-for-website.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} copyrightclaims.org [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} copyrightclaims.org
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} cyber-monday.ga [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} cyber-monday.ga
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} darodar.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} darodar.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} fast-wordpress-start.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} fast-wordpress-start.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} get-your-social-buttons.info [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} get-your-social-buttons.info
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} hosting-tracker.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} hosting-tracker.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} lsex.xyz [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} lsex.xyz
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} qualitymarketzone.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} qualitymarketzone.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} rankings-analytics.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} rankings-analytics.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} rednise.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} rednise.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} simple-share-buttons.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} simple-share-buttons.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} snip.to [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} snip.to
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} success-seo.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} success-seo.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} semalt.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} semalt.com
RewriteRule .* - [F]
Hope it helps
Cheers!
Jerry
Recent Comments
47
This is mostly above my pay grade to totally understand, but I'd hate to use up a plugin slot for something that might have a more systemic fix. Can this be blocked at the hosting level with some sort of upgrade Carson and his Tech crew could design?
It would be the best solution. Maybe we will gather some ideas in this forum and send it to Carson and Tech crew :)
Thanks for opening this discussion, this has started to become apparent in my log files as well on other sites.
This saves a lot of time :)
But needs update - missing all of mine - searched even for partial names
Unfortunately there is something broken there, i got error while trying to access my test site with this file.
Either badly copied it or use this file with caution.
Cheers.
Hello Jerry, This is awesome and very commendable! My problem with this is, Why are there Bots like this? I was a little soft in my analysis of this problem earlier. It is the companies who SELL the REMEDY to the problem who CREATE the PROBLEM in the first place! Nobody probably will be able to prove this because they pay "others" under the table so to speak.
We at WA have about a half Million members of whom are quite capable of "fighting" against these inequities!
HOW ABOUT IT?
I don't think we could win that. From beginning of time there were people who had different agendas, and this is just another venue to show up. Just another symptom.
If you want to fight it, then maybe fight against concept of money?
But meantime, try to keep yourself at least somewhat protected :)
What do you think I am doing? I get a whole website build about the crap money is.
What I am talking about is not "winning" this fight but to make it very uncomfortable for these so called companies over the internet by exposing their scam and BLOGGING about it constantly. Have some of our esteemed IT people come up with evidence and material that we can present. Only material that can be substantiated. Just giving up and let it ride is too Canadian to be even considered!
Hi Jerry,
this has been an immense pain in the butt recently, the bots are going crazy over at my site, I've had bounce rate go up significantly and average time on site go down and both affected my rankings badly overnight. Thanks so much for the help, I've had exactly the same sites attacking me like the ones u mentioned. I will add to the list if anything else comes up. I've downloaded a plugin called BOTBLOCK which is meant to block referral spam and they have a huge list of sites on list which they block + update regularly, I've downloaded and activated yesterday I will keep u posted on how it works.
Can you tell me where I can find that access file?
Cheers,
Viv
Nice! First name for plugin - BOTBLOCK
I didn't want to install another plugin but... well if i have to... i finally will. This plugin should not slow down your site because it is on administrative side (rarely accessed) not user side.
I am not sure how it will work because any plugin that needs to connect to outside server is blocked until unblocked by support. So keep an eye on it for few days or check its info if it is working correctly.
That file you can edit through FTP, when you login via FTP go to folder httpdocs and it should be located there --> .htaccess
HELP!!!! I have no idea what is going on, but I can add a plugin---where do I find it--is it found in list on Dashboard?? Thanks an LOT
Go to plugins -> add new -> botblock -> install -> activate
That's it, the plugin works in the background, no need to do anything else :)
Thanks I'll try this I have all of this bots mentioned by shoofar!! Let me know how you get on with the plugin.
NEW Bad Bot Blocker Module – Block known bad bots and referrers from crawling your site
yes it could help turning that feature on.
Unfortunately it is not very well documented on their site.
I've turned it on. Will see how well it works.
Remember that after turning it on, you also need to go to settings and turn all the functions on, leaving only the last one off.
I've checked the htaccess file, after setting it up. It added some hosts but not those that i had.
So probably still needs some tweaking for now.
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This is great Jerry was just getting hammered by these guys, thank you.