Hidden Link Not Working

Hi Jessica,

As always, we are very thankful to you for such detailed problem explanation. This helps us a lot to understand the problem better and provide best possible solution for you.

Here are the reasons why hiding login might not have any effect (or not work):

1) Page cache: disable and test
2) Another plugin is interfering: Disable the all plugins and test. If the problem is gone then enable other plugins 1 by 1 and test to see which one is interfering.
3) A forceoff method is in place – remove a “forceoff” file and test
4) Plugin disabled: Option under the General settings, ensure it’s enabled.
5) Whitelisted IP: Remove your IP from the whitelist and test

I tried to load your site login URL (wp-login.php) and I’m getting 404 – not found. This tells me that the hiding login URL feature is working normally and I suspect in your case it’s about #5 – you have your IP whitelisted in Shield.

If your IP is whitelisted, that doesn’t mean that the hide login URL feature doesn’t work. It just means that this type of login protection (including settings page – your screenshot) does not apply to you – to your whitelisted IP.

This is how this feature works:

Non-whitelisted IPs

If the not logged in users…

1) try to access the ‘wp-login.php’ page of this site, they will receive a 404 Not Found error page.

2) try to access any page within the ‘wp-admin’ section of this site, they will receive a 404 Not Found error page.

Whitelisted IPs

It’ll work the opposite. User with whitelisted IP will

1) be able to login via ‘wp-login-php’

2) get 404 when they load hidden URL (including if they are logged in)

3) admins will have a feeling that changing login URL in settings (your screenshot) can’t be done nor saved.

All the above means that the hide login URL works correctly on that site.

You may test this by removing your IP from the whitelist and you’ll see that:

1) your current login URL will show your renamed login URL in the settings

2) if you use another browser and try to access the old wp-login.php URL you’ll get 404 Not Found

3) if you use your renamed login URL it’ll load normally

Regarding Bot Detection: Link Cheese offenses report, may I ask you to go to the Block Bad IPs/Visitors module > Probing Bots > and ensure that ‘Link Cheese’ is set to at least ‘Increment Offense Counter, please?

And then in the next few days monitor your audit trail logs for this type of offense. You’ll see entries in your logs, like “Link cheese access detected at xxxxxxx”.

Hope these answers were helpful but please do let us know how you get on sure.

Jelena