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• Massive 404 attack with non existent URLs. How to prevent this?

  - by tattvamasi

  The problem is a whole load of 404 errors, as reported by Google Webmaster Tools, with pages and queries that have never been there. One of them is viewtopic.php, and I've also noticed a scary number of attempts to check if the site is a WordPress site (wp_admin) and for the cPanel login. I block TRACE already, and the server is equipped with some defense against scanning/hacking. However, this doesn't seem to stop. The referrer is, according to Google Webmaster, totally.me. I have looked for a solution to stop this, because it isn't certainly good for the poor real actual users, let alone the SEO concerns. I am using the Perishable Press mini black list (found here), a standard referrer blocker (for porn, herbal, casino sites), and even some software to protect the site (XSS blocking, SQL injection, etc). The server is using other measures as well, so one would assume that the site is safe (hopefully), but it isn't ending. Does anybody else have the same problem, or am I the only one seeing this? Is it what I think, i.e., some sort of attack? Is there a way to fix it, or better, prevent this useless resource waste? EDIT I've never used the question to thank for the answers, and hope this can be done. Thank you all for your insightful replies, which helped me to find my way out of this. I have followed everyone's suggestions and implemented the following: a honeypot a script that listens to suspect urls in the 404 page and sends me an email with user agent/ip, while returning a standard 404 header a script that rewards legitimate users, in the same 404 custom page, in case they end up clicking on one of those urls. In less than 24 hours I have been able to isolate some suspect IPs, all listed in Spamhaus. All the IPs logged so far belong to spam VPS hosting companies. Thank you all again, I would have accepted all answers if I could.

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• URL slugs: ideal length, and the real SEO effects of these slugs

  - by tattvamasi

  this question is addressed widely on SO and outside it, but for some reason, instead of taking it as a good load of great advice, all this information is confusing me. ** Problem ** I already had, on one of my sites, "prettified" urls. I had taken out the query strings, rewritten the URLS, and the link was short enough for me, but had a problem: the ID of the item or post in the URL isn't good for users. One of the users asked is there's a way to get rid of numbers, and I thought it was better for users to just see a clue of the page content in the URL. ** Solution ** With this in mind, I am trying with a section of the site.Armed with 301 redirects, some parsing work, and a lot of patience, I have added the URL slugs to some blog entries, and the slug of the URL reports the title of the article (something close to http://example.com/my-news/terribly-boring-and-long-url-that-replaces-the-number-I-liked-so-much/ ** Problems after Solution ** The problem, as I see it, is that now the URL of those blog articles is very descriptive for sure, but it is also impossible to remember. So, this brings me to the same issue I had with my previous problem: if numbers say nothing and can't be remembered, what's the use of these slugs? I prefer to see http://example.com/my-news/1/ than http://example.com/my-news/terribly-boring-and-long-url-that-replaces-the-number-I-liked-so-much/ To avoid forcing my user to memorize my URLS, I have added a script that finds the closest match to the URL you type, and redirects there. This is something I like, because the page now acts as a sort of little search engine, and users can play with the URLS to find articles. ** Open questions ** I still have some open questions, and don't seem to be able to find an answer, because answers tend to contradict one another. 1) How many characters should an URL ideally be long? I've read the magic number 115 and am sticking to that, but am not sure. 2) Is this really good for SEO? One of those blog articles I have redirected, with ID number in the URL and all, ranked second on Google. I've just found this question, and the answer seems to be consistent with what I think URL slug and SEO - structure (but see this other question with the opposite opinion) 3) To make a question with a specific example, would this URL risk to be penalized? Is it acceptable? Is it too long? StackOverflow seems to have comparably long URLs, but I'm not sure it's a winning strategy in my case. I just wanted to facilitate my users without running into Google's algorithms.

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