Unable to access website – IP or website is GEOBLOCKED

IP is geoblocked

Website is geoblocked

Visitors within a certain network or country is unable to access the website

Example of client complaint:

Hi there,

We need your assistance with a technical problem with hopeoverheroin.com.

I have had several people tell me they could not access our site recently. Today I received the message below:

I wanted to share what our information security team discovered when I submitted a ticket about not being able to access the www.hopeoverheroin.com website from inside our network.   The whitelisting of the site is still in process so I cannot access the site yet, but wanted to give you info in case you want to share with your IT folks.  It may not be an issue but I wanted to share findings just in case.

IP is geoblocked – South Africa.
InfoSec okays the whitelisting of the URL.
IP needs to remain blocked.

Is there something you can do to eliminate this issue?

What that means

The problem is that the website can be viewed by us, and by our American clients. The person states that the problem persists within “their network”. Very important**

It can also mean that this website is blocked for an entire country (not in this example). We do this sometimes when we get a lot of hacking attempts or unwanted traffic from certain countries.

Solution:

Step 1: Make sure the problem is not on our side

We use a plugin called Wordfence to secure our websites. There is a paid and free version. In the paid version allows us to block certain countries or IP addresses.

• Sign into WordPress > Wordfence > Look for Blocking options or country blocking options. This is only available on Premium Wordfence. If you see this is the free version, you can skip to step 2. If the country in question is blocked, unblock it and ask the client if they are able to access the website.

Step 2: The problem is on the client’s visitor’s side. 

If we did not block that particular country, the problem is most likely within the visitor’s network that is blocking the websites’ IP address or country. In this case, we can see that South Africa is blocked within a specific network. This means that the IT team of this visitor needs to whitelist South Africa and/or the websites’ IP Address.

Example of client complaint:

Hello ……..,

I hope you guys are well. 

The problem exists within this visitors’ network. They most likely have a private network that blocked South African websites or certain types of IP’s. It looks like they have already requested the site and country to be unblocked/whitelisted by their security team so they should be able to access the website soon.

Should the problem persist, you can put that specific client’s security team in contact with us.

Take care,