How GSG Site Protector Works
GSG Site Protector uses a Fire First approach, once installed GSG Site Protector is the very first line of defense on your website. Because of the fire first approach, all .php files connected to your WordPress website are protected with GSG Site Protector. When a visitor goes to your GSG Site Protector protected website the very first thing that happens is the visitor’s information is sent to GSG Site Protector.
What information is sent?
- The IP addresses of the visitor
- The web browser ie: Chrome, Firefox, Edge etc.
- The web page requested http://yourwebsite.com
- The query http://yourwebsite.com/?page=1
- The referring website ie: http://mywebsite.com/ has a link to http://yourwebsite.com/ and was clicked
How is this information used?
The IP address is used to GEO locate the visitor, it is also used to find the ISP or The Company the owns or leases that IP address.
Example IP information:
IP Address: 177.38.3.224
Owned By: Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry
Location: Minas Gerais Machado, Brazil , 37750-000
The web browser has what is called header information that is sent with the visit,
Example header from Safari: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_11_6) AppleWebKit/601.7.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/9.1.2 Safari/601.7.7
As you can see, this visitor is using Mac OS X 10.11.6, and Safari web browser.
So how does GSG Site Protector allow or block based on this information?
Within GSG Site Protector client portal you can select to use our predefined list’s or create your own.
GSG Site Protector Block list’s
- Global Company Block List (Companies known for allowing bad traffic)
- Global IP Block List (IP address used for allowing bad traffic)
- Tor Browser Block (Tor known for allowing bad traffic)
- Global Bad Bots Block (bots used for scraping and harvesting website data)
- Bad Site Referrer Block (Bad Site Referrer can hurt SEO)
The first thing that GSG Site Protector checks is if the IP address is listed on your allow list. if yes, no other checks are made and the visitor is not blocked. If no, next check is made. If using Global IP Block list, IP is checked if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. if using Global Company Check, company is checked, if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. Your Company Check, if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. Banned Country Check, if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. Banned State Check, if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. Banned City Check, if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. Banned ZIP Check, if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. Your IP Block list, if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. Your IP Range Block list, if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. Tor IP Block if you are using Tor Block if found the visitor is blocked, if not found next check is made. If you are not using Tor Block, the check is skipped. Next check is Bad Bot Check, if you are using Bad Bot Check, and visitor is on the list the visitor is blocked, if not on list the visitor is not blocked, if you’re not using Bad Bot Check, the check is skipped. Next check is Bad Referrer Check, if you are using Bad Referrer Check, and visitor is on the list the visitor is blocked, if not on list the visitor is not blocked, if you’re not using Bad Referrer Check, the check is skipped.
So how does GSG Site Protector block the visit?
GSG Site Protector will send back an error if any checks find a match, with only one exception the allow list check. Allow list check match overrides all other checks. The error will then trigger one of two events, if using a block page this page will appear and not your webpage, if using a redirect than the visitor will be redirected to a website of your choice, such as google.com. if no error code is sent back to your website the visitor will be able to view your website.
Is GEO Block 100 percent accurate?
Short answer is no, there are several reasons for this.
- GEO information is based on the ISP information.
- Use of VPN will show the VPN IP address.
- Use of Tor will show the Tor IP exit node address.
- See Below
Your Location Ashburn, Virginia US. 20146
Your ISP Amazon Data Services NoVa, IP Range: 3.224.0.0-3.239.255.255
So how can you get around this?
GSG has a number of ways to do this,
- IP Blocking, you can block the IP address 177.38.3.120 from further visits to your website.
- IP range blocking 177.38.3.0 – 177.38.3.255
- Use of GSG IP blocking, we have 727,269,493 known IP address used for deception.
- Use of GSG Tor Browser Block, we have 8,477 known IP address used for Tor.
What is Company blocking?
Each IP address is owned or leased to a Company or ISP, using ARIN WHOIS, you can find all the information about the IP address, we have compiled a list of Companies that are known for use of bad bots, web scrapers and the list goes on, in most cases a server hosting company has on reason for visiting your website. However, there are some exceptions, if you are using a website monitoring or other type of service. In most cases the service will supply there IP address to add to your allow list, this will allow the visit regardless of a company block.
Is GSG Site Protector 100% effective?
Short answer is no, there are several reasons for this.
- If a visitor is blocked and they really want to get in, they will try any number of ways to get around the block, by use of an unknown VPN or other means.
- If your site is not using our block lists.
- If the company is not listed.
- If the IP address is not on any of our lists
So how can you get around this?
When using the GSG Site Protector WordPress plugin, you are connected to your account control panel, from within this panel you will see all the visits to your website. If you see a visit that was allowed you can look at the detailed information of this visit, and decide to block or just delete the record. If the visit was blocked you can decide to allow list or delete the record.
What happens if I block my own IP address?
No worries, if you are using the WordPress plugin to manage your account, the chances of you getting blocked are very slim, when you login to your account you are asked if you would like to add your IP address to the allow list, if you do add, you wont be blocked, however if you do not add you can be blocked. If you find yourself blocked than you can access the client portal directly https://portal.globalsiteguard.com/client/ using your email address and password you will be able to login and unblock your IP address. If you can’t remember your password you can use the forgot password link to recover your password.