thread Website deemed "dangerous" by firewalls in Online Store

Website deemed "dangerous" by firewalls

wishdoorcounty — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 19:18:07 GMT

I have been told by two customers that they cannot order from my website as their firewall software deems my site as dangerous. This has happened before. We are losing customers

Re: Website deemed "dangerous" by firewalls

TheRealChipA — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 19:26:37 GMT

Hi @wishdoorcounty. Can you provide us with your website URL? I’ll look around. The last few times I ran across posts like this here in the Community, it turned out that the sellers had to contact the firewall software folks. They have the ability to verify that your site is ok and whitelist it. Most likely, someone has (either unintentionally or maliciously) reported your site to them, or hit the “report” button when on your site. It happens more often than you think.

Still, if you’ll reply with your URL I can dig around a little.

Re: Website deemed "dangerous" by firewalls

JK_Fiber_Art — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 19:51:50 GMT

Hey there Wishdoorcountry,

I'm assuming your URL is https://www.wishdoorcounty.com/ - since I was curious I tested access to your site using Firefox, Edge and Chrome via my windows desktop - no issues or errors. Also your security certificate for "https" is valid until Dec 2023. As @TheRealChipA suggested, there may be some other issues but, finding a place to start is the challenge. You may want to contact Square's Tech Support to see if they are aware of any reasons. Again, what I tested - everything worked as it should. Google does Black List sites routinely but if the was the case, I would have received the same errors as your customers. Have you experienced the error yourself ?

Re: Website deemed "dangerous" by firewalls

TheRealChipA — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 21:19:04 GMT

@wishdoorcounty As @JK_Fiber_Art mentioned, if that is indeed your website URL (which I’m betting it is), it looks good to me. For kicks and giggles, I ran that URL through a few blacklist search engines I have access to, and it did not pop up on any of them. That means that, most likely, this is an issue with a private firewall that relies on its own list of blacklisted sites rather than on the many publicly available and vetted ones that most reputable firewalls use.

Rather than try to throw spaghetti at the wall looking for this, my suggestion would be the next time a customer tells you this, you should ask them for more details — whose firewall it is, what the exact error message is, screen shots, etc. Then you can contact that company directly to get it resolved. Unfortunately, this is not something that Square would be able to assist with since they would have no influence or standing with those companies. The issue is between you and them, and Square is only your domain registrar and/or web host. Such are the frustrations of a free market internet.

One last thing. If you haven’t done this already, sign up for Google’s Search Console tools. It monitors a lot of things about your websites search performance, standing, and even alerts you to issues like this when they arise. They would notify you if your URL showed up on any public blacklist, especially theirs. It has helped me resolve a few issues with my websites over the years and avert catastrophes.

Let us know if you have any other questions.