Hello Renaissancer,
I'm sorry to hear that you're having problems with blocking out the country domains. I did take a quick look at your .htaccess file and the problem is that you need to use a different format for the listed IPs. Basically, you should be using a different format and a different set of IP ranges. In fact, we have an article that gives you a link to download the correct entries for your .htaccess file. You can see that information in the article titled How to block a country's IP ranges in .htaccess. Go to the link provided in this article, download the proper .htaccess entries, REMOVE your old entries, and then add these. This will be the complete list of ALL the IP ranges in the Russian Federation.
Please let us know if this works out for you, or if you require further assistance.
Regards,
Arnel C.
Sorry to hear about the problems you've been having with blocking the .RU domains. I sat down with one of our systems people and discussed the issue. We need to clarify a few things so that you understand the changes that we made and the effect they will have for traffic trying to reach your website.
First, it is important to know that rules to deny access by the IP range are definitely working. The problem is that a .RU site is not necessarily hosted within those IP ranges. It might be hosted in a country you're not blocking. So the IP range blocking ONLY works for the IP ranges that are listed. For example, if a .RU site was hosted on a USA server, then the deny by IP range won't work because you're only denying the IP ranges for Russian networks.
In order to specifically block domains with a .RU extension, you would need to actually block the referer. James R. attempted to give you a code to block the REFERER. And the referers that you were specifying included the .RU domains. However, the initial code was not working. We verified this with a test (using Google .ru to hit the website from a .RU website). However, the code was corrected after we reviewed it. Literally, the code is basically saying, "If anyone is linking from a domain with the extension of .RU, then deliver a 403 forbidden error message" - this is what the current code is set to do. The .htacess code was changed in order provide you a specific solution to block the referers that you do not linking to your website.
Please remember that this means that ANYONE trying to link to your website with those specific country domains will not be able to access your site. They will see a 403 Forbidden error.
I hope this helps to clear up the issue! It should prevent traffic from the specific country domains you have specified. Let us know if you require further assistance!
Sorry to hear about the problems you've been having with blocking the .RU domains. I sat down with one of our systems people and discussed the issue. We need to clarify a few things so that you understand the changes that we made and the effect they will have for traffic trying to reach your website.
First, it is important to know that rules to deny access by the IP range are definitely working. The problem is that a .RU site is not necessarily hosted within those IP ranges. It might be hosted in a country you're not blocking. So the IP range blocking ONLY works for the IP ranges that are listed. For example, if a .RU site was hosted on a USA server, then the deny by IP range won't work because you're only denying the IP ranges for Russian networks.
In order to specifically block domains with a .RU extension, you would need to actually block the referer. James R. attempted to give you a code to block the REFERER. And the referers that you were specifying included the .RU domains. However, the initial code was not working. We verified this with a test (using Google .ru to hit the website from a .RU website). However, the code was corrected after we reviewed it. Literally, the code is basically saying, "If anyone is linking from a domain with the extension of .RU, then deliver a 403 forbidden error message" - this is what the current code is set to do. The .htacess code was changed in order provide you a specific solution to block the referers that you do not linking to your website.
Please remember that this means that ANYONE trying to link to your website with those specific country domains will not be able to access your site. They will see a 403 Forbidden error.
I hope this helps to clear up the issue! It should prevent traffic from the specific country domains you have specified. Let us know if you require further assistance!
Regards,
Arnel C.