TL;DR
Websites often face issues with artificial traffic from bots and cloud providers, which can overwhelm servers. To mitigate this, one can block entire Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) associated with these providers.
✦ Why It Matters
Engineers can enhance website performance by blocking unwanted traffic from specific cloud providers using ASN data.
Key Takeaways
Full Summary
Many website operators struggle with excessive artificial traffic generated by bots and poorly designed automated systems, which can degrade user experience and server performance. To combat this, site owners can block traffic from specific cloud providers by targeting their Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs).
Major cloud providers, such as Google and Amazon, publish JSON files containing their current IP address ranges, which can be used to identify and block unwanted traffic. By implementing IP blocking based on these ASNs, website owners can reduce the load from non-human visitors.
This approach does not eliminate all unwanted traffic, especially from residential proxies, but it significantly decreases the volume of artificial hits. The implications for engineers include improved server performance and a better experience for legitimate users.
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