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Newbie/Basic Questions

Suggested link producing 404s

Author: P.Campbell Smi (16 Dec 16 8:18am)

One of the links you suggest putting on my page is:

<a href="https://link-to-honeypot-script"><img src="random-word.gif" height="1" width="1" border="0"></a>

While I can see that a harvester might follow the link to the honeypot script, a legitimate user of the page will trigger a 404 error in my server log because random-word.gif doesn't exist, and indeed I am seeing lots of those errors.

Maybe you should at least suggest substituting the address of an image that does exist - something like src="/img/my-logo.png".

Re: Suggested link producing 404s

Author: H.User1325 (16 Dec 16 9:48am)

The objective of <img src="random-word.gif" height="1" width="1" border="0"> is to 1) create valid HTML, and 2) NOT be visible to "a legitimate user." You do not want real users to follow the link to the honey pot. If you were to point the anchor to my-log.png they would be inviting your legitimate visitors to go the the honey pot.

Harvester bots are getting clever and scanning an anchor without anything between the <a> and </a> would give them a clue this is not a valid hyperlink.

If the 404 errors bother you, create a file of zero size named random-word.gif. That will get rid of the error and not produce anything visible on your web page.

Re: Suggested link producing 404s

Author: J.Armbruster (9 Jan 18 6:43pm)

I do not know about the link but I was caught by it and am not happy about it I SPENT my time 4 hrs. researching honey pots. Your error message caused me a lot of grief not being able to access web sites or blogs.FOR NO REASON...I understand the need but fix your problems or your web sites are going to start realizing there losing money via lost customers.well i am a member now without a web site or any of the other admins. and I say Fix It cause its broke....