Stop another domain from displaying my website

[Keith1976]

Hi,

I've found out that another website is somehow displaying my website on their domain. So if I type in their url/domain into a browser my content is loaded at their domain. I assume they have set my servers ip address in a dns record.

I have contacted cloudflare which they are using and their host to try to get it taken down. But would appreciate any advice on what I can do from my side to stop it happening in the meantime.

Edit to say - using the below code at the top of .htaccess works:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?badwebsite\.com$
RewriteRule ^/?(.*) http://www.bbc.co.uk/$1 [QSA,R=301,L]

Thanks, Keith

 

[cPRex]

Hey there! If the .htaccess code you posted does indeed resolve the issue, that would indicate they have indeed pointed the DNS to your system. There isn't a way to can solve that, except by performing the work you have done already.

I would recommend changing that to redirect to a 404 page or some other error message to help deter that traffic.

 

[Keith1976]

Thanks for the reply cPRex.

I like the 404 idea. Where example below is my domain, after setting up a custom error page in cPanel would this work:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?badwebsite\.com$
RewriteRule ^/?(.*) http://www.example.co.uk/404.shtml$1 [QSD,R=301,L]

Edit: I tested and it seems to work very well, thanks for the idea.

 

[cPRex]

You're welcome!

 

[Keith1976]

Just one problem with the above solution.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?badwebsite\.com$
RewriteRule ^/?(.*) http://www.example.co.uk/404.shtml$1 [QSD,R=301,L]

If the visitor goes to badwebsite.com/about they are redirected to example.co.uk/404.shtmlabout instead of to example.co.uk/404.shtml

Is there a way to fix that?

 

[cPRex]

Yes, but you'd need some more advanced rewrite rules.

While I don't claim to be a .htaccess wizard, how about this:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^www.badwebsite.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^badwebsite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.co.uk./ [R=301,NC,L]

 

[Keith1976]

Thanks. I modified it slightly to give a 403 forbidden response. Everything is now working as intended.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^www.badwebsite.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^badwebsite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.co.uk [R=403,NC,L]