Does WPStatistics use curl in a way that could count as user visits?

  • Resolved adamengst

    (@adamengst)


    8 months ago

    My WPEngine site has experienced a traffic spike that generated overage charges. When I asked support about what bot was responsible, they said it was curl/7.58.0, and suggested that WPStatistics might be responsible:

    In this case, the curl user agent is often driven from plugins that convert requests to user agents that can potentially hit the site and count as visits. ?For this, we see that the plugin WP Statistics is potentially pulling from this with hits on a timely basis?
    ?
    However when we try to verify the setup for the plugin we run into the following:

    Notice: Function is_embed was called incorrectly. Conditional query tags do not work before the query is run. Before then, they always return false. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 3.1.0.) in /nas/content/live/flrc/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6078

    Notice: Function is_search was called incorrectly. Conditional query tags do not work before the query is run. Before then, they always return false. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 3.1.0.) in /nas/content/live/flrc/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6078
    You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.

    We ran file permissions to make sure, but it seems that it goes either outside the site or loads information that our user is not allowed to view. ?Please check this area and adjust it if needed, and we can re-check.

    Does WPStatistics use curl in this fashion, and if so, what for? Can it be turned off, or is there any harm in blocking it?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Support Amir

    (@amirfallah)

    Hi @adamengst

    No, we do not use such an approach.

    Please let us know which version of the plugin you are using, and if the plugin is not up-to-date, please update it to the latest version. We have made several improvements in the latest version regarding bot detection, etc.

    Also, please check if the bot detection settings in Settings – Filtering & Exceptions have been configured correctly.

    You can also enable the Log Record Exclusions option in the same section to record the statistics of bot detection, etc.

    I hope this helps you. Please let me know if you need any further assistance.
    Regards,

    Thread Starter adamengst

    (@adamengst)

    Thank you! I’ve updated to the latest and tweaked some of the bot settings. I also set up Wordfence to throttle them.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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