How to stop my site from getting downloaded

[mikep]

First they tried HTTrack and got a 403.

4.3.7.13 - - [25/Mar/2004:14:31:43 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 210 "-" "Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 3.0x; Windows 98)"

Then they tried MSIECrawler and got a 403.

4.3.7.13 - - [25/Mar/2004:14:35:10 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 210 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; MSIECrawler)"

Then they used this:

4.3.7.13 - - [25/Mar/2004:14:39:51 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 8495 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Win32)"

They downloaded about 60 megabytes of my site.

The IP Address is out of Hawaii. No website is hosted with it.

Is there a way I can stop this from happening?

[pmkpmk]

There are ways - and I followed them to some extent. However, in the end I found it's a race I could not win, so I gave up.

But if you want to try, here's the best place to start: [webmasterworld.com ]

[mikep]

Thanks pmkpmk. I've read through that post a few times and came up with my own "close to perfect .htaccess ban list".

I can buy more bandwidth and I wouldn't mind for just the 60 megabytes/day. But what keeps someone from doing this over and over again? That would amount to more bandwidth than I would want to pay for. And I sure don't want to ban every ISP in the state of Hawaii.

[pmkpmk]

Is it always the same IP? Have you tried looking up the administrative contact with "whois" and simply tried to ask WHY he/she's doing it? If the IP address in your sample is valid, then it's a Verizon DSL account. Drop an email to [e-mail] and see what they say...

[mikep]

Nah, that's just the one in my logs from yesterday. Everyday its somebody else. If the same person kept doing it I would contact their ISP.

[bull]

do a site search on WebmasterWorld for 'bot trap'