Anonymous User
(@anonymized-5837566)
Yes, bots and spammers sniffing around URLs can certainly cause plenty of 404s, but this is normal, not something to be worried about.
I see you already posted over there, which is what I was going to suggest:
https://ww.wp.xz.cn/support/topic/404-errors-114/
There’s not really a conflict, or anything to fix. I’m happy to provide advice if you have more questions, but this issue isn’t relevant to the code of Stop Spammers.
The 404s would still be occurring and the Redirection plugin would still be logging them even if you didn’t have Stop Spammers installed.
Thanks @bhadaway .
I see that the main issue could be bots.
As you suggested these 404 errors will still occur.
BTW, when I searched Google for url/null kind of error, I didn’t get any specific reason anywhere. But I see some right direction answers here. Thanks.
Anonymous User
(@anonymized-5837566)
null is a programming term that generally means invalid, empty, undefined, etc. It could be a spam bot or the Redirection plugin throwing that error in the URL.
Generally speaking, malicious bots are often just searching URLs on a given website for vulnerabilities.
In a brute force manner, they’re checking thousands of potential URLs for a 200 response code (meaning that it exists, which then leads to further penetration attempts), some that lead to known software exploits.
To cut down on 404 errors and bad bots taking up your server resources in general, you might add this plugin as an additional layer:
https://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/blackhole-bad-bots/
Thank @bhadaway for the input provided regarding bots and spam.
Regarding this discussion, I would like to ask
– whether the plugin mentioned above and yours, do they slow the site or wordpress dashboard or cause any reduction in organic traffic or any negative effect.
This is just to confirm so that I can use your plugin and other one with relief and be safe too from spammers.
Anonymous User
(@anonymized-5837566)
Anything you add to a website will require resources and technically slow it down.
Every website is different, and requires many kinds of optimization.
Concerning SEO and organic traffic, it is absolutely vital that your site loads quickly. The most important aspect of this is the quality of your host.
But, beyond that, you need to use best practices and optimize, optimize, optimize.
I highly recommend https://wp-rocket.me/.
Whatever you ultimately do, do a before and after speed test at:
https://gtmetrix.com/
Good luck!
