How to install IIS URL Rewrite Module on Windows Server 2016 & IIS 10

When you start to play with Windows Server 2016 and IIS 10, you’ll receive an error when you try to install the IIS URL Rewrite Module in IIS. The error occurs because the URL Rewrite Module installer contains an invalid version check for the IIS being used. Here is how to install IIS URL Rewrite Module in IIS 10…

IIS URL Rewrite “Rewrite Module error: Expression contains a repeat expression”

How to fix the URL Rewrite Module error “Rewrite error: Expression contains a repeat expression” on Windows Server IIS.

How to hide the .php file extension with IIS URL Rewrite Module

How to hide the .php file extension with URL Rewrite on Windows Server IIS? Sometimes it’s important to hide the file extension of scripts you use. Security by obscurity might be that reason, if you don’t want others to know what script language you are using for your website. This example will hide the .php extension using the IIS URL Rewrite module, in a ready to use web.config & .htaccess example.

RewriteProxy with .htaccess in IIS

Rewrite and proxy HTTP requests in IIS using a .htaccess

In my case scenario, I had to proxy requests in IIS, because a website was moved from web server A to B, and the DNS wasn’t updated yet. All HTTP requests for the moved website are handled in IIS’ Default Web Site; that’s the wildcard host, and the original host no longer existed there. We needed to match our website and proxy those requests to the new IIS web server. This can either be done using a proxy with URL Rewrite, IIS Application Request Routing (ARR), or a .htaccess file handled by Helicon Ape.

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Tips to speed up WordPress, serve gzip compressed static HTML files

Who said WordPress is slow on Windows Server IIS? Gzip compress and serve WP-Super-Cache or Cache Enabler static HTML files, to supercharge your WordPress blog. Here is how to serve gzip compressed HTML files through Windows Server IIS: create smaller, compressed, static HTML files, that are downloaded faster. This works with WP-Super-Cache and Cache Enabler on IIS!

SSL in WordPress: how to move WordPress to HTTPS? The definitive guide

Having an SSL certificate in your WordPress is the de-facto standard nowadays, did you know that? Google ranks sites having HTTPS higher in their SERP. But in WordPress, how do you configure an SSL certificate and HTTPS URL? You’ll learn the important steps to move WordPress from http to https in this post.

HackRepair.com’s Bad Bots .htaccess in web.config for IIS

Jim Walker from HackRepair.com posted a 2016 version of his Bad Bots .htaccess on Pastebin. I offered Jim to translate his Bad Bots .htaccess to web.config, to be used with Windows Server IIS. And here it is, learn to protect your WordPress website with this web.config file!

How to block BaiduSpider bot User-Agent

The Baidu spider (BaiduSpider user agent) can be a real pain to block, especially since it does not respect a robots.txt as it should. The following IIS URL Rewrite snippet blocks the Baidu spider based on its User-Agent string.

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My WordPress web.config

Do you host your WordPress website on Windows Server IIS? And are you having trouble with your web.config? I often receive questions about how to use a web.config file in WordPress on Windows Server, and which settings are important for a WordPress site. Maybe it’s because I’m a WordPress on IIS enthusiast, so here is my web.config for your convenience (really, it’s not that special).

How to redirect HTTP to HTTPS on IIS

An HTTP to HTTPS redirect on IIS is often better left to the web server, with a simple httpRedirect redirection, than to a resource expensive URL Rewrite. Where possible, use the IIS httpRedirect element for IIS HTTP to HTTPS redirection, and here is how:

Joomla websites abused as open proxy for Denial-of-Service attacks

Joomla websites using the Googlemaps plugin for Joomla are actively abused as open proxy for launching Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. Even though the Googlemaps plugin vulnerability plugin_googlemap2_proxy.php was released over one and a half (1,5) years ago, I still see these DoS-attacks happening on a regular basis…

Umbraco: Route example.com to www.example.com

URL Routing in Umbraco, how to redirect your website hostname in Umbraco from https://example.com to https://www.example.com.

By default, Umbraco listens to both http://example.com and http://www.example.com. This is not good for your Google ranking and SEO, since this will be seen as duplicate content. Fortunately, it is pretty easy to redirect your website to it’s www variant. Here is how to accomplish this.

Remove IIS Server version HTTP Response Header

Remove HTTP response headers in IIS 7, 7.5, 8.0, 8.5, 10 and ASP.NET

Windows Server IIS loves to tell the world that a website runs on IIS. It does so with the Server header in the HTTP response, as shown below. In this post I’ll show you how to remove response server headers in IIS. You don’t want to give hackers too much information about your servers, heh? ;-).

IIS Outbound Rules with gzip compression

Saotn.org uses used URL Rewrite Outbound Rules in IIS, to offload content from a different server and/or host name. This is also known as IIS with URL Rewrite as a reverse proxy, and should improve website performance. Just recently I noticed Outbound Rules conflicted with gzip compressed content. The following HTTP 500.52 URL Rewrite Module Error was thrown:

Block WordPress comment spammers manually

The less spammers hit your WordPress blog, the better your blog performs, is one of my opinions. A second is, the less unnecessary plugins you use on your WordPress blog, the better. So, a little while ago I decided to remove plugins like Stop Spammer Registration Plugin and do its work myself. Here is why & how: