What is rate limiting and how does it protect my API and website?
Rate limiting restricts how many requests a client can make to your server within a time window, preventing abuse: brute-force login attacks, API scraping, DDoS attempts, and accidental infinite loops. Implementation layers: 1) Cloudflare rate limiting (easiest): Dashboard > Security > WAF > Rate Limiting Rules — block IPs making over 100 requests/minute to wp-login.php. 2) Nginx rate limiting: limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=login:10m rate=5r/m; in http block, then limit_req zone=login burst=3; in location blocks for login pages. 3) Application-level (Node.js): use express-rate-limit middleware — const limiter = rateLimit({windowMs: 60000, max: 100}); app.use(limiter); 4) WordPress-specific: Wordfence brute-force protection (built-in rate limiting for wp-login.php). Recommended limits: wp-login.php = 5 attempts per minute, API endpoints = 60/minute, search = 10/minute. Combine with fail2ban to automatically ban IPs that exceed limits. Configure on Connect Quest hosting at connectquest.co.in.