removing referrer page?
Posted: 19 September 2005 07:06 AM   [ Ignore ]  
Grad Student
Rank
Total Posts:  77
Joined  03-21-2003

I’m getting slammed by referrer spam. I don’t care about who links to my site. Is there a way to completely remove the referrer page so that it doesn’t even exist?

Right now it exists in www.mysite.com/index.php/weblog/referrers/. I want it so that when someone tries to access it it simply isn’t there.

Right now spammers accessing it are sucking up bandwidth like crazy.

I don’t want to do the htaccess thing, i just want to make the “referrers” page go away.

Profile
 
 
Posted: 19 September 2005 09:05 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]  
Lab Assistant
Avatar
RankRank
Total Posts:  244
Joined  05-16-2004

Delete the referrers template. Either that, or change it to a different name. (Changing the template group name and the template name will keep it behind bars, unless you publicly link to it. It doesn’t show you tons of detail, but it can give you an “at-a-glance” look at who’s visiting your site.)

Profile
 
 
Posted: 19 September 2005 09:10 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]  
Research Assistant
Avatar
RankRankRank
Total Posts:  769
Joined  03-16-2002

EE doesn’t handle non-existing templates the way you know it from static HTML pages. As far as I remember, removing the template would by default only cause the index template to be called. You can set up a custom 404-template ... but it won’t help against referrer spammers. The only solution I’d see is using the blacklist module.

Why don’t you want to block them through the blacklist and the optional .htaccess blocking option? That would eliminate the problem at the root for known spammers - of course it will not help against unknown referrers and spam IPs.

-Markus

Profile
 
 
Posted: 19 September 2005 09:44 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]  
Moderator
Avatar
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  1076
Joined  08-01-2002

If you don’t want the referrer page to display at all, and you are on a server you can run a .htaccess file, place this on a single line:

Redirect 404 /index.php/weblog/referrers

Anyone accessing that URL on your site is going to get a 404 error, even if the template still exists at that location within EE.  Its simple and will block anyone from access that referrer page.

 Signature 
Profile
 
 
Posted: 19 September 2005 09:49 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 4 ]  
Moderator
Avatar
RankRankRankRankRankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  32921
Joined  05-14-2004

Wiki’d.

 Signature 
Profile
MSG
 
 
Posted: 19 September 2005 11:06 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 5 ]  
Grad Student
Rank
Total Posts:  77
Joined  03-21-2003

I’m still running v 1.2.1 so I don’t have the blacklist .htaccess thing going on.

I did do the .htaccess redirect thing and that’s working. Will this cut down on the amount of bandwidth being sucked up?

Thanks for the info.

Profile
 
 
Posted: 19 September 2005 11:19 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 6 ]  
Moderator
Avatar
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  1076
Joined  08-01-2002

Yes it should because each 404 File not Found error page is around 300 bytes, and if their scripts are even partially intelligent they will realize they are requesting a page that does not exist and give up after awhile. (or at least you can hope they will).

 Signature 
Profile
 
 
Posted: 05 November 2007 10:15 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 7 ]  
Grad Student
Rank
Total Posts:  50
Joined  04-21-2006

I think I might have a similar problem:
A site is linking to my site but added on /?referrer=css-gallery.co.uk to the url.
Since I have a .htaccess rewrite this produces a 404 page. How do I need to change my .htaccess file so that the users trying to access /?referrer=css-gallery.co.uk will see the homepage. My current .htaccess file looks as follows:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond
%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond
%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule
^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]


Of course I am more than willing to change this if I need to… The problem is I do not know how…
Thanks.

Profile
 
 
Posted: 05 November 2007 10:58 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 8 ]  
Research Assistant
Avatar
RankRankRank
Total Posts:  719
Joined  07-02-2007

Oe that is a good one, i wanna know the answer too.. So anybody?

 Signature 

Truly ExpressionEngine


Fielder Module ( Mass Custom Fields )
Super Cache (Cache heavy tag output)
reCAPTCHA Extension
Rewrite Module


See all my EE Addons (8)

Profile
 
 
Posted: 05 November 2007 01:41 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 9 ]  
Grad Student
Rank
Total Posts:  50
Joined  04-21-2006

I tried

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond
%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond
%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule
^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]
RewriteRule
^\?referrer=css-gallery.co.uk$ /index.php [r,nc]


While this keeps the functionality of removing the /index?/ (Expression Engine bit) it doesn’t redirect my referrals… What am I doing wrong?


Also can someone explain how the first bit actually works. (The bit that gets rid of the index.php in the url. What does the RewriteCond do?

Profile
 
 
   
 
 
Post Marker Legend
New Topic New posts Hot Topic Hot Topic with new posts New Poll New Poll Moved Topic Moved Topic Sticky Topic Sticky topic
Old Topic No new posts Hot Old Topic Hot Topic with no new posts Old Poll Old Poll Closed Topic Closed Topic Announcement Announcements
Theme
Change Theme
Visitor Statistics
The most visitors ever was 1149, on July 16, 2007 09:33 AM
Total Registered Members: 65075 Total Logged-in Users: 25
Total Topics: 82208 Total Anonymous Users: 18
Total Replies: 441829 Total Guests: 158
Total Posts: 524037    
Members ( View Memberlist )
Newest Members:  TomsBmackskithbtggAdminempoleongwishPasha MahardikarmarkdurandomcatClutch Bearings