How to Prevent 403 Forbidden Error

INTRODUCTION

The 403 Forbidden error is an HTTP status code which means that access to the page or resource is absolutely not allowed for some reason.

This article contains basic troubleshooting instructions for 403 Forbidden error.

ERROR MESSAGE

You get the following error when you try to visit a web page:

403 Forbidden
Figure 1.

403 Forbidden Error

Causes and Solutions

403 Forbidden errors is caused by three common causes. Here they are listed from most likely to least likely.

Make sure that your website content has been uploaded to the correct directory on your server. Remember to replace example.com with your own domain name.

If this folder does not exist, feel free to create it.

No index page

The home page for your website must be called index.php or index.html.

To resolve this error, upload an index page to your directory.

If you already have a home page called something else – home.html for example – you have a couple of options:

  1. Rename your home page to index.html or index.php.
  2. Set up a redirect on the index page to your real home page.
  3. Set a different default home page in your file.

If you don’t want a single page to display, but instead want to show a list of files in that directory, see .

The errors

A 403 Forbidden error can also be caused by incorrect ownership or permissions on your web content files and folders.

Permissions

Rule of thumb for correct permissions:

Follopw the folders or files new rules

  • Folders: 755
  • Static Content: 644
  • Dynamic Content: 700
Web Hosting Plans Tanzania

Web Hosting Plans Tanzania

We offer 3 main web hosting plans at budget prices which are: basic plan, premium plan, and unlimited plan.  All the plans come with a free domain for life.

The web hosting plans also include unlimited ftp accounts, databases, email accounts, add-on domains, subdomains, packed domains etc. We also offer free PHP script installation for  blogs, forums, photo albums, e-shop), CMS and much more.

Affordable Web Hosting Plans

How to Change Webmail Password for Cpanel

How to Change Webmail Password for Cpanel

  1. Login to your email using normal webmail URL
  2. domainname.com/webmail
  3. Enter your full email id as a username
  4. Enter your old password
  5. Select the webmail application to use
  6. In the email screen click your email at the top right
  7. in the popped up menu select password and security
  8. Enter your new password

How to change webmail password

Email Spamming/Flooding Security

How do you know you are spamming emails?

  1. Returned (bounced) emails flooding to your inbox
  2. Your Hosting provider will be shutting down your site

Common Causes: allowing a Spammer to use your outgoing mail server:

  1. Compromised Passwords (using weak passwords)
  2. Compromised Programs on your server space (normally through email sending programs)

Scripts that are commonly compromised:

  1. Tell a Friend
  2. Newsletter Mailouts
  3. Bulk Email Programs

Why your Hosting Provider will shut you down:

To offer competitive pricing on hosting, a shared server is used. The Hosting Server runs off one IP address. Spam emanating from an account on this server is identified by its IP address.

DNS Blacklist servers have lists of IP addresses of known spammers. If your Hosting Server gets its IP blacklisted because of spamming, it effects all of the accounts on that server. The result is legitimate emails will be bounced because of the poor reputation of that IP. A server Administrator has no option but to shut the offending account down until the spamming problem is rectified.


BULK EMAIL : is allowed  is 100 per hour or 1,000 per day

DEFAULT EMAIL ADDRESSES – cPanel – Default email account is normally used for spamming

Catch All default email addresses are wonderful collectors of spam. This is because they let any email through with the address (anything)@yourdomain.com.

An easy and effective way to cut down spam is to specify forwarders or mailboxes.
This means that an email that is correctly addressed, specifically for you, is either forwarded to you ISP email address or held in your Mail Box on your server space.

All other emails that are incorrectly addressed to your domain can be then discarded.

The directions below apply to those servers that operate cPanel.
www.(yourdomain).com.au/cpanel
Login :
UserName: yourusername
PassWord: youruserpassword

Click on Mail
In Mail Manager Main Menu,
Ensure that you have a mail forwarder for each of your exact email addresses.
or
set up a POP3 Mailbox for each of your exact email addresses.

Click on Set default address
Enter ‘:Fail: no such address here’ to discard all mail that is not correctly addressed

This means that all incorrectly addresses emails (they constitute the bulk of spam) will be deleted whilst the correctly addressed emails will get through to you.

PREVENTATIVE

Change to email addresses that are not on the internet.
Do not use a common prefix like admin, support, info etc.

New websites should not have plain text email addresses displayed either on the page or in the coding of the page.  There are various java scripts and php scripts available to encode your email address.

If you have a spambot filling in your forms, you may need an image verification to prove that a human is trying to send information to you.

 

Dynamic vs Static Websites

Will the customer frequently manage the website?

Will the customer abandon the website after hosting?

Dynamic website are good if frequent managed and updated websites whilst static websites are good for website that are abandoned immediately after design and hosting.

Dynamic website are dangerous if abandoned  since PHP scripts become obsolete over long period if not updated. When PHP scripts stay too long without updates, hackers, crackers and bad guys will hijack your website since most bugs in the scripts will have be known by those bad guys and uses the bugs to temper with your website.

Dynamic website are normally created from wordpress, joomla, drupal, expression engine and ezpublish and much more.

Specifically we master very well wordpress system for web design and authoring. Other mastered system are joomla, drupal and ezpublish. We also design websites of purely html nature. Customers are advised when and why to choose from the  one of the systems mentioned above.

If we discover that a customer need a website to just give static information to the website visitors and they are not ready to frequently manage the website, we then advise to go for static websites like those designed from manual html, dream weaver, websitex5, coffee cup, webpage maker, and other html editors.

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