Website exceeding traffic limits— is it real, or is it bots?

Most of the WordPress hosting companies track the number of visits for the website. Then based on that they set pricing plans. Here is the common scenario: the website was running for years on one hosting plan. Then, you received an email saying that your visits are UP and the website is exceeding traffic limits.

Basically, you will need to increase the plan and pay extra, and occasionally that can be a significant increase. That is ok if your traffic really increased, but what if these are generated by bots?

This text is for you.

Most of the hosting companies will not check if the increase is real, or if it's generated by bots. So you'll need to do some detective work.

Here is the list of things you can check:

Check your Google Analytics. That might be a good place to start, as GA filters bots. It'll give you some perspective compared with hosting numbers.
Reach out to the hosting company and ask them for access server logs. You could also check the logs to see if any of the IPs are showing multiple times.
Define with hosting what methodology they use to count visits.

These should be a good place to start. Once you have all the info, it will give you perspective if the traffic reported by hosting is valid or not.

Traffic is generated by bots, and now what?

Well, there are several actions you need to take.

Disable XML-RPC because it is WordPress API. Which can be used for brute force attacks (you can disable it with the plugin). Before doing this, please check if you have any services using this API.
Install some security plugin and block IPs that you are seeing under the records.
Block these IPs under the Cloudflare if you are using it as well.
Reach out to the hosting company and ask them if they have a way of blocking traffic.
Block more than 3 bad login attempts.
Change the URL of your admin page, as bots might be targeting your admin page.

We had a case where none of the actions above was stopping bots. That is, until we changed the URL of the admin page. Traffic was lowered from 45.000 to 29.000 of monthly visits. That gave us a key argument for reverting to the old hosting plan.

Have any questions regarding bots and traffic? Just contact us at support@valet.io and we'd be glad to answer them!

Get Your Web Properties in Top Shape If You Want Online Success

Ever think about the health of your website? You should because site health is crucially important.

A healthy website works as expected and delivers the results you hope for. Trouble is it’s hard to tell just by looking whether your site is or isn't in excellent shape.

On the surface, it might seem as if everything is working well. But then you probe deeper. Tests reveal serious problems. Perhaps site visitors can't fully engage with your content. Perhaps they're prevented from easily doing whatever it is you want them to do.

Mason James is Valet's cofounder and head of business development.

If you’re a Valet client, you don’t have to worry because site healthcare is among Valet’s retinue of services.

However, if you’re not a Valet client, let cofounder Mason James explain Valet’s very effective approach to giving your website excellent health.

Holistic Approach to Site Health

According to Mason, Valet takes a holistic approach to website health. Valet does this in part by evaluating site health hierarchically.

“There are many, many different metrics we look at to assess site health,” Mason indicates. “But in order for those metrics to produce intelligent insights, we have to put each metric into an appropriate level of the hierarchy we embrace.

“A total of five levels comprise our site health assessment hierarchy. They stack one on top of the other into the form of a pyramid that looks very much like Maslow's hierachy of needs pyramid.”

Mason says at the base of this pyramid is the assessment metric of security.

After that comes usability, which relates to website responsiveness.

Then traffic, a reflection of how well the site engages the audience.

At the top of the pyramid: conversion—actions taken by the site’s visitors.

“This approach allows us to contextualize the health problems your site may be suffering and then know the right order to address them in.

“For example, we might discover vulnerabilities in your site that leave it open to hacking. This problem fits within the area of security. Since security occupies a place at the base of the pyramid, that makes it a foundational concern. As a foundational concern, it gets treated first. Until we address it, we can't be successful treating problems we found higher up in the pyramid.”

Can Affect Multiple Levels

Mason contends that some site-health deficiencies produce problems felt across multiple levels of the hierarchy.

“Consider the 404 error code,” he says. “As a site-health issue, it fits into the usability level of the hierarchy because it creates a bad experience for the user. They click a link that promises to take them to the desired content but instead all they get is a ‘page not available’ message.

“Now suppose visitors encounter multiple 404s. Those affect your Google search engine optimization. They reduce your SEO, which limits your ability to reach your audience. So, in addition to a usability issue, the problem extends one level up, to traffic.”

Mason reveals that Valet measures a vast number of site-health metrics, and assigns to each a score of zero to 100 (with 100 being best).

“In order to score a metric, we track it over time,” he explains. “But we don’t simply give our clients a list of scored metrics because there are just too many of them for clients to wade through.

“We instead want our clients to see at a glance the good and bad of their site’s health. So for that reason we distill all of the scores into easily grasped reference points.”

Mason says this approach enables site owners and operators to more clearly understand the "surgery" or "medications" Valet will prescribe to bring about excellent site health.

“A healthy website is fully optimized for search," he says. "A healthy website provides excellent usability. It delights visitors at every turn. It maximizes the potential for conversions. If you have good site-health, you're golden.”

NEXT: Site health measurement tools you can use on your own (but beware—they have limitations).

Maslow’s Hierarchy for Your WordPress Website

Maslow’s Hierarchy is a theory of human need often expressed as a pyramid. Starting at the bottom, the most fundamental human needs (food, water, shelter) are in the larger section. Towards the top of the pyramid, it moves up towards growth and self-actualization (love, esteem, and being your best.) (more…)