Where do you send the IPs that you Rewrite?

[guillermo5000]

I use Mod_Rewrite to send away bad bots and problematic visitors, but I'm wondering where you have chosen to send them and why. In other word when you Rewrite their URL, what URL do you write? Thanks all!

[jdMorgan]

Since bad robots won't cooperate by following a 301 or 302 redirect, I don't "send" them anywhere; I simply hand then a 403-Forbidden response with no content.

If you redirect bad guys to other people's sites, you are simply "passing on" the problem, and you might conceivably be held accountable for it. So, I'd recommend you either 403 them, or use a server-internal rewrite to serve them alternate content. The latter approach can actually be seen as marketing in the case of hotlinkers; Instead of serving the original image, serve a low-resolution substitute image with your URL displayed over it.

Jim

[guillermo5000]

Thanks JD, very good point, I don't want to burden others.

I have a long list of Rewrites in my htaccess that are rewriting bad bots to Google because I read somewhere that it's not desirable to simply fail them.?

So, if I use "RewriteRule .* - [F]" what code would that generate?

Thanks for your wisdom!

[jdMorgan]

From [httpd.apache.org...]

'forbidden¦F' (force URL to be forbidden)
This forces the current URL to be forbidden, i.e., it immediately sends back a HTTP response of 403 (FORBIDDEN). Use this flag ... to conditionally block some URLs.

Jim

[guillermo5000]

Thank You!