Bot traffic feasting on Google ads and other online campaigns has become a well-known issue over the past few years.

With constant sensitization to bot traffic, advertisers, publishers, and customers have become wary of bots and their effect on the online space. 

Thankfully, with Google Analytics, bot traffic can be spotted. However, identifying the bot’s specific activity and choosing which one to block can be tricky because there are both good and bad bots. 

As an online marketer, how do you spot bot traffic in analytics? Why is there even bot traffic on your website? Most importantly, how do you stop bot traffic from negatively affecting your website?

What is bot traffic?

A bot is an autonomous online program that performs processes and tasks. These tasks can vary from clicking on paid ads to collecting data from search engine results, spamming comments, or scraping your content.

Bots are created to behave and interact like humans. As of 2022, statistics show that about 47.4% of internet traffic comes from bots, about a 5.1% increase from the previous year.

Statistics also show that internet traffic, at 52.6%, has dropped to its lowest level over the past eight years. This means that bot traffic is an almost unavoidable evil.

As much as bot traffic does a lot worse, there are good bots that crawl your website to give you visibility.

For instance, a good bot crawling your website allows your page to appear in Google search results. Also, with good bots, your keyword research will work.

These good bots shouldn’t be blocked. However, you might need to exclude them from your Google Analytics.

Bad bots, such as click bots, spam bots, crawling bots, carding bots, etc., cause significant harm to your page and alter your Google Analytics data.

How can I identify bot traffic in Google Analytics?

There are several ways to identify bot traffic in Google Analytics, depending on the bot type:

Traffic spike 

Not all traffic spikes indicate the presence of a bot; some spikes are due to genuine page interactions.

For instance, if a famous influencer posts something online, the page will have activity, leading to a spike in traffic. Still, when your traffic spike isn’t due to genuine interaction, it’s mostly a sign of bot traffic.

Unusual metrics 

Another sign of bot activity on your webpage is a higher-than-usual bounce rate, a lower-than-usual session rate, or a higher percentage of single-page views.

These signs can also indicate that your page could offer a better user experience. Be sure of the cause before assuming bots are present.

Strange behaviours

One of the most apparent signs of bot activity on your page is seeing strange comments (spam), leads from fake emails, or declined card transactions.

When you start seeing an increase in non-human activities, you are experiencing bot traffic.

No location

Monitor your page users; their OS and location are always specified. However, bots sometimes have an OS or location that will appear in your Google Analytics dashboard.

When you doubt your traffic spike, check the geolocation on your analytics dashboard.

How to remove bots from your Google Analytics 

Most Google Analytics data will include crawls from good bots, such as research tools (e.g., SEMrushbot-CT) or search engine indexing (e.g., Bing). 

All these bots are good, so it’s better to exclude them from your analytics than to block them.

For blocking horrible bot traffic, it is best to identify them and add them to your exclusion list. How do I create a block list or exclusion list?

There are four significant ways to block bot activity in your Google Analytics dashboard.

Use the Google Analytics standard bot filtering option

To get this done, go to

• Go to Admin
• Select Section
• View Settings 
• Select the box Bot Filtering: ‘Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders’. 

This method will remove all bot activities from your data. Note that you have only removed the data, but you haven’t blocked the bots

Exclude particular bots from your list and create a custom view

To get this done, go to

• Admin
• Select the Create View button. An option will be presented to choose a name for your new view. Ensure that you do not tick the bot Filtering box.

You can also add a custom filter of your choice. To do that, go

• Select New Custom View
• Select Filter 
• Select Custom Filter 
• Add the ISP details, IP address, hostname, and any other information you wish to add to the filter
• Confirm the filter before application to be sure how it would adjust the primary data.

Use the referral exclusion list

To do that, go to

• Admin
• Select Property Tab
• Select Tracking Info
• Select Referral Exclusion List 
• Write the domain you are excluding and save the filter

This way, you can remove from your Google Analytics data certain domains, especially those that provide ghost spam or SEO spam

Take out bot activity from existing Analytics 

You can also add a filter to see how your web traffic looks without bot traffic. To do that, go to

• Audience 
• Select Overview
• Select Add Segment 
• Click New Segment 
• Name your New Segment
• Go to Conditions 
• Select Include/Exclude 
• Choose Exclude 
• Switch to the Source and Matches Regex tab.
• Input the identified bot traffic domain
• Save your filter by clicking the Save button.

This way, bot traffic is excluded from your Analytics data 

How do these solutions help?

When you remove bot traffic from your Analytics, you get a clearer picture of your traffic data and can better determine whether the traffic on your website is genuine.

Though this method helps remove bot traffic from your analytics, it won’t stop bot traffic from invading your ad or website.  

How to prevent bots from clicking on your ad

You save yourself money and a lot of effort when you prevent bot activities from clicking your Google ad.

There are three ways to block bot traffic from your ads. The first two are manual, while the last one is a digital solution

Exclude location 

From your Google Ad drop-down, go to

• Campaigns 
• Choose the more+ button
• Select location

If you know your competitor’s zip code, you could exclude that location. If you don’t know, find out and block out their place.

Unfortunately, a significant disadvantage of this solution is that potential clients from the blocked country/city will need help to see your ad.

An advantage of this solution is that your competitors will not have access to your ad, nor can they send bots to attack it.

Exclude IP Address

From your campaigns, go to

• Settings 
• Click on the additional setting 
• Exclude specific IPAs

If you can get your competitor’s IPA, you can exclude them from accessing your ads. If you have noticed any specific IP address that constantly clicks on your ad, you can ban that IP.

The disadvantage of this solution is that it is challenging to pull off because it is a manual process.

For instance, you could exclude about 50 IP addresses on a particular day, and the next day, there are more to block. That can be tiring.

Fraud prevention software

The most effective and efficient way to keep ad traffic out of your Google Ads is to use fraud-prevention software such as ClickPatrol.

There are various pieces of software available to suit your specific needs. Good software is the most advanced way to block bad bots from accessing your ad campaign in real time.

This means that fraudulent activities, such as click farms, cannot access your ads. This software can also prevent spam bots, DDoS attacks, or direct attacks.

How to keep bots from wasting your Google Ads budget

Bot traffic has become a serious challenge for advertisers running Google Ads campaigns.

From wasting advertising budgets to distorting performance data, malicious bots can negatively affect the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts.

While Google Ads provides some protection through its invalid click detection system, advertisers should not rely on it alone.

By monitoring unusual traffic patterns in Google Analytics, excluding suspicious locations or IP addresses, and using reliable fraud prevention tools, businesses can reduce the impact of bot traffic on their campaigns.

Taking proactive steps to block bot clicks helps ensure that your advertising budget is spent on genuine users who are more likely to engage with your ads and become customers.

Abisola

Meet Abisola! As the content manager at ClickPatrol, she’s the go-to expert on all things fake traffic. From bot clicks to ad fraud, Abisola knows how to spot, stop, and educate others about the sneaky tactics that inflate numbers but don’t bring real results.

View all posts by Abisola (Abisola)

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