Lots of spam by facebookexternalhit after update?

Hi there @miikkamakela ??

Thanks for reaching out about this. Let’s troubleshoot it together!

Yesterday after updating this plugin we started getting bunch of spam and bot traffic.

To clarify, was Facebook for WooCommerce the only plugin (or code) that was updated at the time, or otherwise?

Is there a possibility that this update has caused this to happen? The timeline seems to suggest it, but it’s hard to say if this the root.

The following two are for sure:

• The latest released (version 3.1.14) was publicly available on 2024-04-03. Changelog linked here, for reference.
• Since March 20, 2024, there are no other reports/results surfacing when searching with facebookexternalhit as a keyword — forum-wide.

Therefore, it sounds like the issue is isolated on the site related to this thread.

I am not super aware what this plugin does.

Facebook for WooCommerce?connects your WooCommerce store to Facebook to help people discover your eCommerce shop. You can purchase advertising, find new customers, set up a shop to sell your products on Facebook, and measure the results of the actions customers take on your website.?

Feel free to take a look at the overview, linked here, for further details.

I hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
We will be happy to help you further.

We haven’t heard back from you in a while, so I’m going to mark this as resolved – we’ll be here if and/or when you are ready to continue.