Block Domains & Subdomains Using .htaccess
A large focus of my redesign was improving site speed, and in doing so, I took a look at my site's error_log for the first time in a long time. I was shocked when I found out that 90% of my site errors were either hacking attempts or hot-linked files from hundreds of different tumblr.com subdomains. Thousands upon thousands of PHP fatal errors due to lack of memory saw me seeing red pretty quick -- no wonder I was having periodical speed issues! Luckily this bit of .htaccess code allows me block all of those sites:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https?://([^.]+\.)*tumblr\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]
</IfModule>
These days I only see PHP notices in my error_log, and that makes me a very happy man. I've also noticed less SPAM commenting, so maybe Tumblr is used a SPAM hub too? Either way, blocking domains and subdomains did the trick for me!
![JavaScript Promise API]()
While synchronous code is easier to follow and debug, async is generally better for performance and flexibility. Why "hold up the show" when you can trigger numerous requests at once and then handle them when each is ready? Promises are becoming a big part of the JavaScript world...
![Serving Fonts from CDN]()
For maximum performance, we all know we must put our assets on CDN (another domain). Along with those assets are custom web fonts. Unfortunately custom web fonts via CDN (or any cross-domain font request) don't work in Firefox or Internet Explorer (correctly so, by spec) though...
![Facebook Open Graph META Tags]()
It's no secret that Facebook has become a major traffic driver for all types of websites. Nowadays even large corporations steer consumers toward their Facebook pages instead of the corporate websites directly. And of course there are Facebook "Like" and "Recommend" widgets on every website. One...
![MooTools Link Fading]()
We all know that we can set a different link color (among other properties) on the hover event, but why not show a little bit more dynamism by making the original color fade to the next? Using MooTools 1.2, you can achieve that effect.
The MooTools...
There are 2 issues with your solution:
1) If a legit person linked to your blog from their Tumblr blog, people would see a Forbidden message. This is because you have your images under the same domain as the blog. Keeping them on the sub-domain would save your visitors from this.
2) Security – probably a minor issue, but when you get a Forbidden message from Apache, you also get a path to the content you were forbidden to access. And since you are using WordPress with caching, the message looks as follows:
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /wp-content/w3tc/pgcache//block-domain/_index_search_engines.html_gzip on this server.
Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at davidwalsh.name Port 80
Thanks for sharing Shimon. Per your points:
1. If it’s only specific subdomains hurting you, listing them one by one would be best, I agree. In my case, I don’t care if legit Tumblr sites are linking to me. :)
2. I’ll look into the Forbidden issue — thanks!
Wow. blocking anyone comming from tumblr seems pretty extreme to me, you could at least add a RewriteCond to block only static content.
Seems like a lot of work, when this doesn’t even require mod_rewrite:
deny from .tumbler.com