Jim Westergren
About me, my projects, SEO, Web Development and Personal Development since 2005
"If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves." - Thomas A. Edison

Stop the Topsites Spam!

There is a site I have had a lot of problems with in regards to the hosting. That is my Directory TopSite.

I finally moved the site to another hosting I have in which I pay $150 monthly for (15 C-class IPs, unlimited accounts etc). But then I got an urgent mail from the hosting support. It was found that topdirectories.info is using up all the CPU of the server and it has to be stopped rapidly or they would suspend. I was surprised and decided to check it out. I found out that it was not using very much bandwidth, the traffic was average like 200-300 daily uniques and the size of the database was not a problem.

I went into Webalizer and this is what I see:

Over 24K hits per hour!

I scroll down ...

Over 94% coming from button.php!

I scroll down ...

Here are all the biggest referrals. I check out the top 28 ones (60% of all hits) and I found out that they all are spammers!

Here is one example, look at that. They are collecting hundreds of buttons of Topsites and then probably have some bots that reloads that page thousands of times a day and also click on all the buttons to get better ranking on the topsites. These are from Aardvark Topsites but also other ones and the spammers are mainly from turkey using words such as "sohbet". And for each reload button.php get's executed and in that file are SQL queries that gets the correct numbers to display on the button. Imagine 20 thousand reloads of button.php each hour and the amount of CPU work ...

So I wanted to ban these spammers in the .htaccess and found an excellent resource: Block hitbots with .htaccess

In the redirection field I placed the URL of the main spammer: http://www.gulum.net, hehe.. That solution was still triggering the PHP code so I changed it to deliver a 403 forbidden instead.

Here is the .htaccess code (Last updated: August 22, 2007):

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?5sohbet.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?aklimdasin.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?almanyachat.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?altdudak.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?anonym.to/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?automotive-links.mustangv8.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?ara-bul.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?arkadasohbet.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?asimp3.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?asksokagi.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?askyeri.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?astroloji.ws/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?bahisci.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?baysohbet.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?bedava.mirctr.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?bedavasohbet.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?bizimmekan.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?bizimonline.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?cafeyurt.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?cafeyurt.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?cetsohbet.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?chatchat.gen.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?desichatpk.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?dirty-funny-joke.aisbird.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?dominacja.najlepsze.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?dost-chat.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?dsmartnedir.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?egecafe.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?e-iklan.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?elmaliseker.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?fenerbahce.gen.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?foxchat.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?freehitwebcounters.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?galatasaray.gen.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?geceninrengi.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?gulum.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?guzelsozler.name.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?hadigel.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?iddaamac.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?ircstar.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?itirafsitesi.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kacaksohbet.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kadersizim.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kamp3.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kardelen.gen.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kayip.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kodes.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kralgazete.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kurtlarvadisiteror.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kvteror.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?kvteror.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?liseliguzeller.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?meyilli.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?mirc.gen.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?mirc-irc.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?mircarsivi.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?mirchit.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?mircland.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?mirctr.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?mircturk.gen.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?mircyukle.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?moviesmammoth.blogspot.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?musiqueray.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?myuitm.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?nazlimcafe.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?netlek.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?oyunyolu.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?pcforumlari.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?pornolar.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?radyo.mircturkey.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sanahasret.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sevelim.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?site.name.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet.gen.tr/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet.kenthaber.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet.sevgi.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet-tr.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet23.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet24.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet27.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet27.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbet35.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbetani.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbetara.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbetbol.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbetcafe.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbetchat.tc/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbetedin.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?sohbetyap.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?soyle.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?the-cloak.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?toplistler.idealsohbet.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?topsohbet.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?tr.cc/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?trcafe.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?trsohbet.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?tsohbet.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?turk-sohbet.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?turkbul.org/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?turkmirc.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?turkmuhabbet.com/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?yapma.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?yuzukchat.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?webalem.net/.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(www.)?zurnasohbet.org/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

Update:

Daniel was so kind to submit his own solution which are probably more effective. You can see his comment about it here. If his files are removed they are mirrored here. Just make sure that you have the updated list above of domain names to block for this.

You can or in other words, you must copy the above code in your .htaccess file if you run any kind of topsite. With this code the buttons will not even load, there will only be a link left to your top site. :) Just insert the code in your .htaccess that is located in the root folder or create one.

Please tell other topsite owners about this, there are hundreds out there that are getting affected by these Turkish spammers.

If you know any other domains that spams topsites, if you have any other feedback or need help then just comment here.

14 Sep 2006

About the Author Jim Westergren Jim Westergren is a Swedish web entrepreneur currently living in Spain. He is happily married and has three lovely children. Some of his interests are web development, SEO and writing.
He is the Founder of DomainStats and N.nu. Read his .