Thank you for purchasing the Aelia Blacklister for WooCommerce. A simple, yet effective solution to reduce the risk of fraudulent orders and discourage malicious users. The following guide will help you setting up our plugin on your system, in a few steps.


1. Install and activate the plugin

You can find a guide on how to install or update a plugin in WordPress in the following article: How to install or update a plugin. After the installation, you can find the settings page under WooCommerce > Blacklister.


Tip

If you don't see the link to the settings page, please refer to the following article: The settings page for an Aelia plugin is not visible after the installation.

 


2. Configure the Blacklister 

The settings page of the Blacklister is divided in sections. Each section allows you to configure a specific aspect of the plugin.


2.1. Configure the Blacklisting Rules

The first section allows you to enter rules that your site can use to stop unwanted users from placing an order. Rules can be used to block a user based on the following criteria:

  • Email address
  • IP address
  • Phone number
  • Name and surname
  • Address


The format of each rule depends on the element being blacklisted. Below you can find a guide for each section.


Tip

Most rules support regular expressions. Regular expressions are a powerful tool, which may require some time to master. You can use the following resources to learn how to use them and test them:

If you prefer, you can also use our contact form and send us a message. You can describe your requirements and we can prepare the regular expressions for you.



2.1.1 Configure Email Address rules

You can enter the rules for email addresses in the section labelled Blacklisted Email Addresses.

You can block a specific email address as is, and block it outright, or you can compose a regular expression that covers a set of email addresses, such as all the addresses under a specific domain.


Examples

  1. Block a specific email address: banneduser@banneddomain.com
  2. Block all email addresses from banneddomain.com: /.*?@banneddomain\.com/
  3. Block all email addresses from banneddomain.com, .org and .net: /.*?@banneddomain\.(com|org|net)/
  4. Block all email addresses starting with "baduser", from any domain: /^baduser.*?@(.*?)/


2.1.2 Configure IP Address rules

You can enter the rules for email addresses in the section labelled Blacklisted IP Addresses.

You can block a specific IP address, by entering it verbatim, or you can use one of the following formats to block entire ranges:

  • CIDR: 123.123.123.0/24 
  • Wildcard: 123.123.123.*
  • Range: 123.123.123.1-123.123.123.254


Tip

The CIDR format can be difficult to implement correctly. You can use a tool like CIDR to IPv4 Conversion to generate the correct range.


2.1.3 Configure Phone Number rules

You can enter the rules for phone numbers in the section labelled Blacklisted Phone Numbers.


Like with the emails, you can block a specific phone number, or use a regular expression to cover a set of numbers.


Examples

  1. Block a single phone number: +0123456789012
  2. Block all phone numbers with a US international prefix (i.e. "01"): /(\+|00)01.*/
  3. Block all phone numbers that contain "555": /.*?555.*/


2.1.4 Configure Customer Names rules

You can enter the rules for customer names in the section labelled Blacklisted Customer Names.

Like with the emails, you can block a specific name, or use a regular expression to cover a set of names. 


Tip

For each rule, you must always specify both the name and the surname to be blocked. The two values must be separated by a double pipe symbol (i.e. FIRST NAME||SURNAME ). If you use regular expressions, you must specify two separate expressions, delimited by a slash (/) for the name and the surname (i.e. /first name expression/||/surname expression/).


Examples

  1. Block a single name, John Doe: John||Doe
  2. Block a set of customers named John, Jonathan or Johnny Smith: /John|Jonathan|Johnny/||/Smith/
  3. Block any customer with a surname that starts with Smith: /.*/||/Smith.*/
  4. Block any customer with a surname that starts with Smith or Doe: /.*/||/(Smith|Doe.*)/


2.1.5 Configure Customer Address rules

You can enter the rules for customer address in the section labelled Blacklisted Customer Addresses.

 

Like with the names, you can block a specific address, or use a regular expression to cover a set of addresses. For each rule, you must specify the parts of the address and separate each one with double pipe symbol. The format must be the following: ADDRESS 1||ADDRESS 2||CITY||COUNTY/PROVINCE/STATE CODE||COUNTRY||POSTCODE. 


Tip

You can specify only some of the parts, starting from the left, and leave out the remaining ones on the right. That is, you can use any of the following formats:

  • ADDRESS 1
  • ADDRESS 1||ADDRESS 2
  • ADDRESS 1||ADDRESS 2||CITY
  • ADDRESS 1||ADDRESS 2||CITY||COUNTY/PROVINCE/STATE CODE
  • ADDRESS 1||ADDRESS 2||CITY||COUNTY/PROVINCE/STATE CODE||COUNTRY
  • ADDRESS 1||ADDRESS 2||CITY||COUNTY/PROVINCE/STATE CODE||COUNTRY||POSTCODE


The rule engine will automatically consider the missing parts as "match anything".


Examples

  1. Blacklist 101 to 109 Main Street, anywhere in the world: /10[0-9] Main Street/ 
  2. Blacklist 101 to 109 Main Street in London. Notice how the "Address 2" element has been entered as /.*/, to indicate that any "Address 2" should match the blacklist criteria: /10[0-9] Main Street/||/.*/||London
  3. Blacklist 101 to 109 Windsor Road in Sussex Borough, London, UK. Please make sure that you use ISO2 country codes for the COUNTRY element:/10[0-9] Main Street/||/Sussex.*/||London||GB


Tip

Address rules can be difficult to implement, therefore we would encourage you to avail of our support service. We will be ready to help you writing the rules you need.


2.2 Configure the notifications to show to blocked users

The second section of the settings page allows you to customise the notifications that are displayed to your visitors when the Blacklister stops the checkout.

Each field supports a token, which can be added to the message. The Blacklister then replaces the token with the corresponding value. For example, if you enter a message like: 

Sorry, we can't accept orders from the email address "{email_address}".

The notification at checkout will appear as follows:

Sorry, we can't accept orders from the email address "banneduser@banneddomain.com".


2.1.6. Configuration completed

After entering your messages, simply click on the Save button, at the bottom of the settings page, to save your configuration. The Aelia Blacklister will then protect your site from malicious users.


3. Additional sections

The remaining sections on the settings page can be used to request support or manage your licence. You won't have to configure anything in them.



4. Need assistance?

If you encounter any difficulties with the configuration of our Currency Switcher, please feel free to contact us, and we will get back to you as soon as possible. You can also consult our knowledge base, to find the answers to the most common questions.