How to detect bot traffic  is non-human traffic to your website or app. This type of traffic can give negative associations to your brand and damage your reputation, user experience, and marketing.

How to Detect Bot Traffic

Identifying and preventing bots on your site is essential for protecting brand reputation and revenue, optimizing efficiency and maintaining user loyalty. Bad bots can cause a variety of problems from sending fake traffic and spam to ad fraud.

Some indicators to look for include:

Bounce Rate (%)

High bounce rates on your website indicate that a large percentage of visitors navigate away after only viewing one page. If your bounce rate has jumped, it may be an indicator that a lot of bot traffic is on your site.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Detecting Bot Traffic: Best Practices and Tools for Website Owners

If your average session length is shorter than expected, it could be an indication that a lot of bot traffic is on the site.

Geographicity of Users

Increased traffic from countries where your company does not operate is an obvious indication that this isn’t a normal visitor.

Slow Loading Metrics

Another common metric that can be used to detect bot traffic is slow load times on your website. If your load times suddenly dip, it could be a sign that a lot of bots are on the site and trying to strain the servers.

Inconsistencies in analytics metrics can be frustrating for a site owner and can make it hard to measure the performance of their website. Unauthorized bot traffic can skew metrics like page views, bounce rates, session durations, geolocation of users, and conversions.