Best practices for preventing DDoS attacks for website administrators

What is a DDoS attack and how does it work?

A DDoS attack occurs when a large number of infected systems (Botnet) send requests to a server or website simultaneously. These requests can:

• Saturate CPU and RAM resources

• Consume network bandwidth

• Take down the web server or database.

Common types of DDoS attacks include:

• Volume-based Attacks (High volume - UDP Flood, ICMP Flood)

• Protocol Attacks (SYN Flood, Ping of Death)

• Application Layer Attacks (HTTP Flood, Slowloris)

Why should website administrators care about combating DDoS?

From a technical perspective, DDoS attacks are not just a temporary disruption to site access, but A direct threat to service availability, infrastructure security, and business digital reputation In modern web architectures, even a few minutes of disruption can have serious technical and economic consequences.

1. Direct impact of DDoS on availability (High Availability)

The most important principle in site management, Continuous service availability DDoS attacks are resource-saturation attacks such as:

• Network bandwidth

• Concurrent connections

• Web server threads

• Database Queues

They prevent real users from receiving responses from the server. This can lead to a direct crash on e-commerce or service-oriented sites. Service Outage It will be.

2. Sharp drop in SEO and domain authority in search engines

Google and other search engines Frequent downtime are considered a sign of poor infrastructure quality. Frequent DDoS attacks can cause the following:

• Increase in 5xx errors in Crawl

• Reduce Crawl Budget

• Drop in ranking of key pages

• Declining trust in ranking algorithms

For sites that have grown based on organic traffic, this damage is very costly.

3. Increased infrastructure costs and server resource consumption

During a DDoS attack:

• CPU and RAM usage increases dramatically

• The bandwidth consumed multiplies.

• The cost of cloud servers and outbound traffic is rising.

In some cases, site administrators unwittingly pay heavy costs for malicious traffic without having a protection system in place.

4. Increasing the probability of simultaneous penetration with an attack (Smokescreen Attack)

In advanced attacks, DDoS is sometimes referred to as Coverage for intrusion attacks When the team's focus is on keeping the site available, the attacker may:

• Attempting to exploit vulnerabilities

• Brute Force Attacks

• Malicious code injection

• Unauthorized access to the admin panel

simultaneously. Therefore, DDoS can be the initiator of larger security threats.

5. Reduced user trust and damage to the brand

From a user experience (UX) perspective:

• Slow or down site = user distrust

• Frequent absence = permanent user abandonment

• Service disruption = brand damage

For online businesses, even a short-term DDoS attack can cause the loss of loyal customers.

6. Serious threat to financial sites, games, and online services

Sites that directly depend on real-time connectivity are most affected:

• Online stores

• Game servers

• Payment systems

• API-driven platforms

In these services, a few seconds of delay or outage can mean Complete service failure Be.

7. Legal requirements and SLAs in some businesses

In many projects, the site administrator is required to guarantee a certain level of availability (SLA). DDoS attacks without a proper defense system can cause:

• SLA violation

• Financial penalties

• Loss of contracts

Be.

What to do: 

1. Use CDN and Anti-DDoS services

One of the most effective ways to combat DDoS attacks is to use CDN It is.

Benefits of CDN against DDoS:

• Distributing traffic between multiple servers

• Capture and filter malicious traffic before it reaches the main server

• Protection against Layer 3, 4, and 7 attacks

Services like CDNs with intelligent protection layers are considered the first line of defense.

2. Enable Web Application Firewall (WAF)

WAF It checks incoming requests to the site and blocks suspicious requests.

Important WAF capabilities:

• Identifying HTTP Flood Attack Patterns

• Blocking malicious IPs

• Protecting forms and APIs

• Reducing the load on the web server

For WordPress, e-commerce, and high-traffic sites, WAF is a security requirement.

3. Rate Limiting and Request Throttling

By activation Rate Limit It is possible to limit the number of requests allowed from an IP.

Example applications:

• Limit login requests

• Prevent sending consecutive requests

• Dealing with Bots and Automated Scripts

This feature is usually found in:

• Firewalls

• CDN

• Web servers (Nginx, Apache)
  It is implementable.

4. Using a network and server firewall

A firewall is one of the most basic defense tools.

Important firewall settings:

• Blocking unnecessary ports

• ICMP and UDP Restrictions

• Blocking suspicious countries or ASNs

• Using Fail2Ban to automatically block IPs

5. Optimize the web server to handle high traffic

Proper web server configuration plays an important role in DDoS resistance.

Important actions:

• Setting Connection Limit

• Controlled Keep-Alive Activation

• Using Nginx as a Reverse Proxy

• PHP-FPM and database optimization

6. Continuous monitoring of traffic and logs

Rapid detection of an attack is key to minimizing damage.

Monitoring tools can:

• Detect sudden increases in traffic

• Identify suspicious IPs

• Send real-time alerts

7. Use a scalable server (Scalable Infrastructure)

On high-traffic sites, using scalable infrastructure is crucial.

Solutions:

• Load Balancer

• Cloud servers

• Auto Scaling

• Separation of web server and database

These methods ensure that the site remains accessible even in the event of an attack.

Conclusion

DDoS attacks are a serious threat to any website, but with The right combination of security tools, proper server configuration, and continuous monitoring The impact of these attacks can be greatly reduced.

For site administrators, the best DDoS countermeasure strategy includes:

• CDN + WAF

• Strong firewall

• Restricting requests

• Sustainable and scalable infrastructure

Using these methods simultaneously provides the highest level of protection.