Hi everyone, Basically I'm the owner of a wordpress blog and I've never had any problems before (no code error, no 404 etc) and this is kind of weird. I however decided to explore my cPanel and clicked on the "Error Log" which makes you see the last 300 error log messages to see that I have 3 error messages. Before telling you the error messages, here is the configs of my wordpress : - Premium Theme from themeforest (updated and no code problems) - Standard Plugins (Alexa, Statscounter, Page Links To, Akismet, Google Analytics) - Smush.It + W3 Total Cache is also installed for the cache/compression. W3 Total Cache is configured like hostgator recommend it so no problem there. - 3 IPs blocked because of the big spam I was getting (IPs are not the ones in the error messages) - No problems concerning traffic, pages views etc that would me think of a "huge" problem Here are my 3 error messages : All links referer are working fine, I asked if someone could leave a comment and it's working. Thank you very much for your time and help,
You don't need to worry about that. I'll try to explain it with my limited knowledge. First, your server and site are working great. It was configured to block spam. The log in Cpanel shown the IP of the spammer. Here are The scenarios: They trying to leave a comment in your post by looking into wp-comment.php and to make it legitimate, it add referrer to one of your post. Any access to wp-comment.php could be blocked by server and site configuration. .htaccess may limit direct access to wp-comment.php It is a bot which is identified by the server or your site as spam comment. They use a software installed locally or in VPS to leave comment. Akismet and other spam catcher are very effective in blocking spam. Many webmaster install the plugin in their site and akismet able to determine if an IP is using by spammer or not. Huge and almost identical comment would be spam. Some server configuration are very smart in blocking spam comment and direct access to wp-comment.php, trackback and pingback. Your server deny access from those IP because their something wrong with those IP. If it was in sharing host where many sites hosted in the server, it will be very easy to catch spammer. Imagine hundreds of sites receives same comments. Server will block access to wp-comment.php because the IP was trying to excessively access it. You may want to ask your server administrator (Hostgator) about the log. It seems your server configuration work great for you. Don't let comment spammer access your site. Any bad bots, spammer and malicious activities will cost you trust, earning and many more. If you use advertising, don't let it open your site as it will greatly reduce the earning. Ads network know which sites excessively accessed by bots and unwanted visitors. It will reduce the earning. Five points above were only my opinions. It could be true and maybe wrong. We need an expert in server configuration and also a someone whom have great experiences in detecting how spam works.
Thank you very much for the great answer. If someone could also confirm what has been said would be nice. So if I understood good ? I don't have to worry about it very much and just in case, I just have to email hostgator to have a strict answer on that ? Thank you again
I own a server and that errors looks familiar to me. You may want to check 'real-time stats' (availability depend on each server) and see the profiles of your visitors. It is best to analyze 'user-agent' used to access your site (http) and direct request to specific file (wp-comments-post.php). Blank and bad user agent would be completely denied as it cause leeching and many bad things. You're welcome. Let's wait the other to share their knowledge and experiences. I believe you don't need to worry about it. The answer from your hosting provider could be useful. If by chance you find '404 type of errors/missing files(objects)' in server log, this is the one to be worried.