how to handle MANY 404?

  • Resolved yellofish

    (@yellofish)


    2 years, 8 months ago

    Recently my site got infiltrated by some SPAM bots creating 10000+ users, that wrote 10000+ posts. All cleared via the DB (through backend is too slow).

    But I still get MANY hits to the deleted posts from SPAM bots, like 1000 per hour or so, slowing down the whole server due to 100% CPU Usage (shared host).

    In Rank Math 404 Monitor I see the links, and just delete them (no other option).

    Is there any method that will put less load on the server? I have Cloudflare free plan too if that helps.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author Rank Math

    (@rankmath)

    2 years, 8 months ago

    Hello @yellofish,

    Thank you for contacting the support and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.

    You would need to up the security on the Cloudflare’s end.
    https://geekflare.com/cloudflare-firewall-block-bots/

    You can also ask your hosting provider to help you.

    Here is a guide for handling 404s:
    https://rankmath.com/kb/fix-404-errors/

    Hope that helps.

    Thread Starter yellofish

    (@yellofish)

    2 years, 8 months ago

    Not sure what went wrong, but it works better now. Forwarding works fine. All is good.

    One question: I redirect 404 through RM to a out-of-Wordpress 404.php page.

    So what is better in terms of server load, 301 to 404.php – or – set to 410 ?

    When I put in 410 I get land on the default ‘page can’t be found’ which seems slower. I wonder what is better.

    Plugin Author Rank Math

    (@rankmath)

    2 years, 8 months ago

    Hello @yellofish

    If the 404 page is outside WordPress, then the 410 header won’t load via Rank Math. You can check via here:
    https://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/header-checker/

    Since the page is not the default 404 page and is outside WordPress, that could be the reason for the slow loading.

    If you can share the URLs, we will be in a better position to help.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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