How to Block a Range of IP Addresses

As much as content creators want traffic to their website, there is such thing as the wrong type of traffic. Sometimes it's content scrapers, sometimes it's malicious bots; either way, it's important to know how to block problematic IPs from your site.

To block a range of IP addresses using an .htaccess file, you can use the * wildcard for pieces of the IP address:

Order Allow,Deny
Deny from 219.198.*.*
Allow from all

You can also use a regular expression:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^219\.198\.\.
RewriteRule ^ - [F]

Don't let known attackers and problematic bots bring your website to a halt! Be quick to check your site logs and ban addresses that are causing havoc!