Bot traffic refers to internet traffic generated by automated software programs, or bots, rather than human users. Bots can perform a wide range of tasks, both beneficial and malicious, at a much faster rate than humans.
Approximately 30% of all internet traffic is estimated to come from bad bots designed to steal content, disrupt services, and conduct other nefarious activities.
Effectively identifying and preventing unwanted bot traffic is crucial for maintaining website performance, security, and accurate analytics.
What is Bot Traffic?
Bot traffic refers to any non-human activity on a website or app. While it often has a negative reputation, bot traffic can be either positive or negative depending on the bots’ purposes.
These bots are designed to perform specific tasks or actions without human intervention. Therefore, any traffic originating from these non-human sources is considered bot traffic.
Some bot traffic is helpful(e.g. Siri, Alexa), but other bot traffic can be bad and cause problems(DDOS attacks).
Website owners and app developers need to track and analyze their traffic to identify and separate bot and human visitors, ensuring accurate metrics and protecting against security threats.
How can bot traffic be identified?
Web engineers can check network requests on their sites to spot likely bot traffic. Tools like Google Analytics or Heap can also help find bot traffic.
Here are some signs of bot traffic in analytics data:
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Unusually High Pageviews:
If a website suddenly gets a lot more visits than usual, it’s probably because bots are clicking on it.
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High Bounce Rate:
The bounce rate shows how many users visit just one page on a site and then leave without clicking anything else. If the bounce rate suddenly goes up, it might be because bots are targeting that page.
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Fake Conversions:
An increase in fake sign-ups, like account creations with random email addresses or contact forms filled with fake names and numbers, might be caused by automated bots.
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Unexpected Traffic Surge:
A sudden increase in visitors from a specific area, especially one where few people are likely to speak the site’s language, might mean there is bot activity.
Types of Bot Traffic
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Good Bots:
- Search Engine Crawlers – Search engines use bots to visit web pages, download them, and find links to other pages. This helps them organize and categorize web pages for search results.
- Website Monitoring Bots – These bots monitor websites for performance issues like loading times or downtime, ensuring optimal site health.
- Aggregation Bots – These bots gather data from multiple sources and centralize it, assisting in data collection or content aggregation.
- Scraping Bots – While scraping bots can be used for legal purposes like research or data collection, they can also be utilized for illegal activities such as content theft or spamming.
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Bad Bots:
- Spam Bots – These bots share unwanted content, often in comment sections or through phishing emails.
- DDoS Bots – Advanced bots can organize DDoS attacks, flooding websites with too much traffic and causing them to crash.
- Ad Fraud Bots –Bots are computer programs that click on ads in a dishonest way. Sometimes they team up with fake websites to make ads look more popular, which could result in higher payments for the fraudsters behind them.
- Malicious Attacks – Bots can be used in harmful ways. They might spread harmful software, like viruses, or start attacks where they demand money for unlocking computer files. They can also break into systems and make them less safe.
How to Identify Bot Traffic
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Unusually High Pageviews:
If a website suddenly gets a lot more visits than usual, it’s probably because bots are clicking on it.
-
High Bounce Rate:
The bounce rate shows how many users visit just one page on a site and then leave without clicking anything else. If the bounce rate suddenly goes up, it might be because bots are targeting that page.
-
Fake Conversions:
An increase in fake sign-ups, like account creations with random email addresses or contact forms filled with fake names and numbers, might be caused by automated bots.
-
Unexpected Traffic Surge:
A sudden increase in visitors from a specific area, especially one where few people are likely to speak the site’s language, might mean there is bot activity.
How to Prevent Unwanted Bot Traffic?
1. Blocking Old Web Browsers and User Agents
Many tools and scripts use old lists of user-agent strings by default. This won’t stop advanced attackers but could deter some. Blocking outdated browsers has minimal risk; modern browsers auto-update, making it hard to use outdated versions on the web.
2. Protecting Against Malicious Bots
It’s important to secure not only your website but also exposed APIs and mobile apps. Make sure to share information about blocking suspicious activity across all your systems. Simply protecting your website isn’t enough if other ways for bad actors to get in are left unchecked.
3. Analyzing Your Website’s Visitor Channels
Watch where your website visitors come from. Are there sources where many visitors leave quickly? Are some sources not bringing in many sales? These might be signs of fake traffic from bots.
4. Understanding Traffic Spikes
Traffic spikes might seem good for your business at first glance. But do you know where these spikes are coming from? If they can’t be explained, it might mean there’s unwanted bot activity causing them.
5. Monitoring Failed Login Attempts
Set a limit for how many times login attempts can fail. Then, watch closely for any sudden increases or unusual patterns. Set up alerts to get automatic notifications if anything strange happens.
Keep in mind, that some advanced attacks might not trigger alerts for each user or session, so it’s crucial to set general limits to catch them.
6. Watching for More Gift Card Validation Failures
Seeing more failures in checking gift card numbers could mean bots like GiftGhostBot are trying to steal balances.
7. Be aware of public data breaches
Credentials that have recently been stolen are more likely to still work. When big breaches happen anywhere, expect malicious bots to use those credentials more often to try to access your website.
Conclusion
Bot traffic consists of automated visits to websites, often for malicious purposes like data scraping or fraud. To identify and prevent unwanted bot traffic, monitor unusual spikes in website activity, use CAPTCHA or bot detection tools, and implement IP address blocking or rate limiting measures. Regularly updating security protocols also helps mitigate risks.
