Site security being tightened
Over the last month or so peculiar request strings (that is, people trying to get to specific but nonexistent pages on this site) has prompted me to carefully evaluate the site's security.
This has manifested itself in these nonexistent pages returning a mass of 404 Page not Found errors – which for search engine optimisation reasons is not ideal, not to mention waste of bandwidth! So we have decided to look very closely at our 404 error logs and take action to ensure that incorrect request strings are treated with the contempt they deserve.
From this point on, spurious requests for nonexistent pages will return a 403 Forbidden error. Furthermore all malicious web crawlers or IP addresses that continually act suspiciously will simply be banned.
As all these new measures are being run out, if you find yourself getting a 403 Forbidden error drop me an email and tell me what you were trying to do, giving the full url (web page address) that you were attempting to visit, and we'll try and sort it out.
All this effort to keep content rippers, hackers and other non-desirables at bay. But worth it.
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