If you have a blog created in WordPress and have ever been suspiciously tried to enter your system from certain countries, the best option is to block those countries to maintain security. Therefore, today we show you how to block countries in WordPress.
Doing this is not complicated at all, in fact, it is very easy. Keep reading this article and you will be able to find out how to block countries in WordPress easily.
What steps to take when blocking countries in WordPress?
Increase the security of your website or blog by blocking specific countries from which you have received cyber attacks. Doing it is very simple, and requires a few simple steps:
Go to the “plugins” section
The best way to block countries and IPs is with plugins. For this, you must enter your blog or website created in WordPress and from there click on the “plugins” section. Then a search bar will appear in which you must place the name of a blocking plugin.
Some of these very good and reliable blocking plugins are Ip Geo Block, IP2Location Country Blocker or iQ Block Country.
These plugins work because they analyze the IP address of everyone who enters your page. The IP address is an identifier that each device possesses, and is also used for other security applications, such as limiting the number of login attempts.
Download the lock plugin
Once you select some of these three that we mentioned, or any other of your preference, you can also add or remove themes and plugins to start the process.
For example, these plugins that we mentioned all work in the same way: you will have a bar where you can add the countries to block or those that you do want the website to reach.
Block IP by country
All these plugins have a “blacklist” and “whitelist”. These have the objective that you enter the IPs by country that you want to block to the blacklist. On the other hand, the IPs that you like and do not want to block can be added to the white list.
You will have many countries to choose from to block, from all continents and corners of the world. Therefore, doing it with the plugins is definitely a good and simple option to manage the security of your website.
Ready! In short, this is all you have to do to block countries in WordPress, isn’t it very simple? Although, to block countries in WordPress, there are other ways such as Wordfence and the htaccess file, with which you can also do it.
The htaccess file and its use in blocking countries in WordPress
This is a way in which you can also block countries, but this, without the need to use blocking plugins as we previously showed you. But when using this method, you have to be very careful to know what you are doing and how you are doing it. But as a preventive measure, create a backup before starting the process.
Also remember that before making important changes to your website, it is advisable to activate the maintenance mode in WordPress to avoid strange behavior on your page.
To start blocking, what you have to do is reject the access range of the countries in the htaccess. To do this, you can implement CountryIpBlocks where a list of countries with their IP range is output.
Once there, you choose the country or countries you prefer to block, and check options such as htaccess Yellow (countries allowed) or htaccess Deny (countries denied), then proceed to copy and paste the Ip code into the htaccess file and that’s it!
Wordfence: A different and smart option to block countries in WordPress
Something that you must take into account before starting the matter is that, to block countries, you must have the Premium version of Wordfence. Now, if you have this version of it, you can start blocking countries by going to Wordfence> Blocking> Country Blocking.
You can choose what you want to limit access to, be it the web, the login form or both options. After this, a long list of countries will be displayed, where you will mark the ones you want to block.
Importance of blocking countries in WordPress
Whichever method you use, it is vital that you know what to do in case of international attacks on your website, as this could greatly affect your page or brand.
Always keep in mind these essential tricks to guarantee the security of your WordPress website, and thus do not have a bad time due to fraudulent procedures carried out on behalf of your page.
