Block IP addresses.

[tb]

When I look at my stats I see many hits comming from places that I do not believe will ever buy anything.
Is there a way for me to shut out a block of IP addresses?

As well am I correct in my assesment?
I am getting many hits from countries, that would severly punish the surfer if the authorites were aware of this activity.
I hardly believe these surfers are about to pull out the old mastercard and sign up.

As always, any and all of your fine help is most appreciated.

[Maj. Stress]

you can block or redirect them using htaccess if you are using an apache server.

[cd34]

deny from 1.2.3.

will block all from that class C

ErrorDocument 403 http://where/to/send/the/person

will redirect them elsewhere

Many people geotarget - whether it makes good sense is sometimes questionable -- what if a reviewer/linklist owner/tgp owner is in one of your blacklisted countries gets redirected? I think some linklist & tgp owners frown upon it - tread carefully.

[terry]

I agree with cd34. Be careful and think about it before you do it.

[tb]

Thanks everyone for the answers.

I would not block access to a complete ranges of IP's but rather single out some where the traffic is unreasonably heavy and you feel you are not going to make any sales.

Here are three specific examples,
of blocks of IP's I would restrict.

Tokyo, Japan
http://www.whois.sc/218.231.137.31
Here the language barrier is enormous.
What are the chances they will join anything?


Dubai, United Arab Emirates
http://www.whois.sc/195.229.241.182
This is a muslim country, I don't see any sign ups here, not unless the surfer is a lunatic.

Hyderabad, India
http://www.whois.sc/210.210.79.19
This one is really iffy, Hyderabad is a very mixed city with a high proportion of muslims, and a few high tech companies thrown in for fun. I think it's a couple of bored westerners giving me the traffic.

What made me notice these three was the disproportionately high amount of traffic I was getting from them.
A few hits mixed in here and there no problem, but these three were in the top 10.
(The other seven in the top 10 list made sense as target markets.)

Keep in mind I have only been doing this for about three months.

Any ideas or suggusetions?
Am I totally off the mark or does this line of reasoning make any sense now that you can see an example?

Thanks again for any input.

[RawAlex]

Bounce them off to a page and use that page to send them to "trade traffic"... numbers are numbers, after all!

Alex

[tb]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Bounce them off to a page and use that page to send them to "trade traffic"... numbers are numbers, after all!
Alex

Thanks Alex.

Can anyone point me to a good tutorial on htaccess?
Time to do some learning.

Thanks again to all.