Thousands of Crawl Errors & Access Denied in Google Webmaster Tools

Check your BPS Security Log and post one of the feedburner log entries. What we see a lot of is folks use things like single quote code characters (apostrophes) or other things in URLs that should not be used in URLs. You can of course tell BPS not to block URL’s with certain code characters in them. That is not recommended of course since certain code characters should never be used in URLs.

I don’t have BPS installed anymore, but I left the htacess in there, I just use the htaccess file generated by it but without actually having the plugin installed so I can’t access any logs because there aren’t any.

By the way my htaccess file is for version 50. I’ve uninstalled BPS while using 50, so my htaccess is not the latest version 50.1. If that even matters…

So anyway could you help me out with this? What do I have to edit? I can show you a Google Webmaster Tools error if you want… Here’s one of those pesky errors:

2014/01/blablabla/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BLABLABLAFEEDNAME+(BLA+BLA+BLA+FEED)?body=https://www.website.com/2014/01/blablabla/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BLABLABLAFEEDNAME+(BLA+BLA+BLA+FEED)

Thanks

.htaccess code changes occur in some BPS plugin versions. In BPS .50.2 there will be some more new changes to the htaccess code. If you do not want to keep BPS installed, but still use the .htaccess files then I recommend you install newer BPS versions to get any new code and then uninstall BPS. Not sure why you feel like you need to uninstall BPS? It is a very lightweight plugin that is performance optimized – does not cause any website slowness and can actually speed up a website if you use the BPS Speed Boost Cache code.

The solution is here: https://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/allowing-parentheses-in-query-strings/#post-10589
since you do not have BPS installed then just manually copy the code in the link above and overwrite the BPS QUERY STRING EXPLOITS code in your root .htaccess file.

Also I am assuming that you do NOT have any other .htaccess code in your root .htaccess file and are ONLY using BPS .htaccess code. If you are using other .htaccess code in your root .htaccess file then comment out any other .htaccess code and test.

Well I uninstalled it because I want to keep as few plugins as possible, the fewer the better. Plugins usually consume RAM and CPU and I want to save these resources as much as possible. BPS keeps a log and logs are usually CPU hungry…

Anyway, what does that code do? The one from the forum you sent me to?

Could you check out this older topic where you helped out someone with the exact same issues as me? https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/403-forbidden-error-on-google-wmt

The only problem is that this code:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^.*(\[|\]|\(|\)|<|>|%3c|%3e|%5b|%5d).* [NC,OR]

is no longer present in the recent versions of BPS. Or it is present but different. So what exactly do I need to edit in the new 50 version in order to fix this?

Thank you for your fast replies! Really appreciate it!!!!!

That old code is old BPS code that is no longer used in BPS. The code in the forum link contains new BPS code and that code has already been modified to allow round bracket code characters (parenthesis) in URLs. So you can copy and paste the code as is. There will be 2 new changes to BPS .htaccess code in .50.2.

Logging is optional – you can turn it On or Off. BPS is performance optimized and uses very little memory or resources.

Assuming that all questions have been answered – thread has been resolved. If you have additional questions about this specific topic please post them.

Ahh I didn’t know the code is already fixed to permit round bracket code characters, yet why am I getting these errors in Webmaster Tools? Maybe they are not caused by BPS? Have you tested Webmaster Tools with Google Feedburner? See if you get any errors?

Anyway thanks for your help, really appreciate it. Cheers!

In general BPS .htaccess code does not block the Googlebot or any other good bots, but if you have code characters in URL’s that BPS does block then those URL’s will be blocked unless you whitelist those code characters or not filter URL’s for those code characters in BPS .htaccess code/rules.

To confirm or eliminate BPS .htaccess code as causing the block do the standard BPS troubleshooting steps:

1. Make a backup of your .htaccess files first by going to the htaccess Core Backup & Restore tab page. Select the Backup htaccess Files Radio button and click the Backup Files button.
2. On the Security Modes page Activate Default Mode for the Root Folder BulletProof Mode.

https://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/read-me-first-free/#bps-free-general-troubleshooting

Interesting suggestion, I would definitely try to whitelist these links.

Thanks