What is Bot Traffic and How to Stop Bad Bots

Nearly half of all internet traffic today isn’t human. These automated visitors – or bots – range from essential tools that help the internet function to malicious programs designed to attack websites and steal data. 

Whether you’re running a small business site or managing enterprise infrastructure, understanding and controlling bot traffic has become critical for online security and performance. 

This guide will show you how to identify different types of bots, protect against harmful ones, and ensure your website statistics reflect real human engagement.

What is bot traffic?

Bot traffic is any website activity generated by automated software rather than human visitors. While legitimate bots help power essential internet services, malicious bots can pose serious security risks and drain server resources.

While bots are responsible for creating opportunities for your site to succeed, they also have their downsides. Bot traffic impacts your site for three key reasons: 

1. It impacts website performance – automated requests consume bandwidth and server capacity that could otherwise serve real users. 
2. It affects analytics accuracy, potentially skewing metrics that guide business decisions. 
3. Malicious bots can compromise security through various attack methods, from data theft to denial-of-service attacks.

With sophisticated AI-powered bots becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from human users, understanding bot traffic has become even more pivotal. For website owners and security teams, the challenge isn’t just blocking harmful bots – it’s ensuring legitimate bot traffic performs its vital functions while minimizing their impact on server resources and performance.

Types of bot traffic

Just as human visitors come to your website with different intentions, bot traffic serves various purposes. Let’s breakdown the key types of bot traffic you should be aware of.

Good bots: Essential web crawlers

Search engine bots from Google, Bing, and other platforms are perhaps the most important beneficial bots you’ll encounter.  These crawlers systematically visit your web pages, following links and analyzing content to understand your site’s structure and subject matter. They then process this information into search indexes, allowing relevant users to discover your content through search. 

Malicious bots: Understanding the threats

Unlike their beneficial counterparts, malicious bots are designed to cause harm. DDoS attacks happen when bad bots overwhelm servers by flooding them with traffic, often as part of larger botnets. Scraper bots steal content and data, potentially exposing sensitive information or duplicating your content elsewhere. Click fraud bots manipulate advertising metrics by generating fake clicks, while spam bots attempt to inject unwanted content through comments and forms.

Left unchecked, these malicious bots can drain your resources, compromise your data, and damage your site’s reputation and revenue streams.

How Bot Traffic Affects Your Website

Bot traffic impacts every aspect of your website’s operation, from performance to profitability. While server loads spike during DDoS attacks, even routine bot visits consume site bandwidth and processing power. Analytics become unreliable as bot activity inflates visitor counts and skews engagement metrics. For Ecommerce sites, bot-driven inventory hoarding and price scraping can directly impact sales.

The effects manifest in several key areas:

1. Server performance: Each bot request consumes CPU cycles, memory, and bandwidth. During peak times, this additional load can slow page load times for real users. Even beneficial bots like search engine crawlers can impact performance if they index your site too aggressively. This can happen when crawl rates aren’t properly configured or multiple search engine bots visit simultaneously. Using robots.txt directives and search console settings can help control crawl frequency.
2. Analytics distortion: Bot traffic can severely skew metrics that guide business decisions. Bounce rates may appear artificially high, average session duration becomes unreliable, and conversion rates can drop as bots inflate your visitor count without completing desired actions. This makes it difficult to assess the true effectiveness of marketing campaigns or website optimizations.
3. Business costs: Beyond performance issues, bot traffic directly impacts operating costs. Higher bandwidth consumption leads to increased hosting expenses. For sites using cloud services that charge based on requests or data transfer, bot traffic generates real financial overhead.

How to identify bot traffic

Detecting bot activity requires analyzing multiple indicators. Unusual traffic patterns, like sudden spikes in visits or abnormally high bounce rates, often signal bot presence. 

Server logs reveal technical footprints: suspicious user agents, repeated requests from single IPs, and non-standard browsing patterns. Modern bots may mask these indicators, requiring more sophisticated detection methods.

Key warning signs

Watch for these telltale signs of bot activity:

1. Session behavior: Bot sessions often show unusual patterns. They might navigate pages too quickly for human browsing, follow unlikely click paths, or ignore common UI elements like images and CSS. Look for sessions with zero mouse movements or keyboard interactions.
2. Request patterns: Bots typically make requests in ways humans don’t. They might hit your API endpoints directly, access pages in alphabetical order, or repeatedly request the same resources. Many ignore robots.txt rules entirely.
3. Traffic anomalies: Sudden traffic spikes from specific regions, especially during odd hours, often indicate bot activity. Watch for disproportionate traffic to non-landing pages or excessive requests to search and login pages.

Using Google Analytics

In GA4, traffic from known bots and spiders is automatically excluded. You cannot disable this filtering or view how much bot traffic was excluded. However, you can still identify potential bot activity by monitoring bounce rate spikes, session durations (0-1 seconds) and geographic anomalies.

Advanced detection methods

For high-traffic websites and businesses handling sensitive data or transactions, basic bot detection may not cut it. Modern bots use sophisticated techniques to evade basic detection, requiring more advanced identification methods, such as:

• Behavioral analysis: Monitor user interactions like mouse movements, keyboard patterns, and scroll behavior. Bots often fail to replicate natural human browsing patterns.
• IP intelligence: Cross-reference visitor IPs against databases of known bot networks and data centers. Consider factors like geolocation consistency and connection types.
• Machine Learning Models (MLMs): Deploy algorithms trained to identify bot patterns based on hundreds of request attributes, from header information to session characteristics.

If you’re not sure where to start with these advanced detection methods, a managed hosting provider can help implement and maintain these security measures.

For example, Liquid Web’s managed hosting solutions include built-in security features and tools to help identify malicious bot traffic. Our Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides advanced bot detection capabilities, while our vulnerability scanning services help identify potential security gaps that bots might exploit.

Preventing and stopping bot traffic

Here are the main ways to protect your site, starting with the basics:

1. Rate limiting 

What it is: A system that controls how many times a visitor can access your pages within a specific timeframe. 

Implementation: Set specific thresholds – limit each IP to 100 requests per minute for general pages, and stricter limits (10-20 requests/minute) for login and search pages. 

These limits effectively block automated attacks while allowing normal browsing. Most human users rarely exceed 100 page requests per minute, making this an effective filter.

2. CAPTCHA 

What it is: Those “I’m not a robot” challenges that ask users to select images or type text. They verify that a real person is using your site. 

Implementation:

• Add after 3 failed login attempts, as bots often attempt password guessing
• Require for all account registrations to prevent fake accounts
• Trigger for bulk actions like repeated searches or form submissions
• Use invisible CAPTCHA (background verification) for better user experience The key is selective implementation – too many challenges frustrate users, too few leave gaps.

3. Firewall rules 

What it is: A security system that filters incoming traffic based on set rules, like a bouncer checking IDs at a club. 

Implementation: 

Block these common bot indicators:

• Requests missing user agent strings (legitimate browsers always include these)
• Known data center IP ranges (where most automated scripts originate)
• Traffic patterns unique to bots (alphabetical crawling, perfectly timed requests) These patterns rarely match human behavior, making them reliable indicators.

4. Enterprise Protection: 

For businesses where downtime isn’t an option, Liquid Web’s enterprise-grade security system provides comprehensive protection through multiple integrated layers.

At the core of our security approach is thorough vulnerability scanning. Regular automated scans examine your entire infrastructure, identifying potential security gaps before malicious bots can exploit them. This proactive approach helps maintain compliance standards while preventing security issues from developing.

Our expert security team monitors and responds to threats around the clock. When scanning identifies vulnerabilities, our team can quickly implement fixes. Having security professionals who understand your infrastructure means faster response times and more effective protection against evolving bot threats.

The combination of automated scanning and expert oversight ensures that your protection stays current as bot tactics evolve. This integrated approach means potential security gaps are identified and closed before they can be exploited.

For Linux servers, Imunify360 PLUS provides real-time threat protection against malicious bot activities. The system actively defends against malware, viruses, and DDoS attacks while offering malware remediation when needed. Monthly vulnerability scans ensure your security stays current as threats evolve.

Windows server environments benefit from Server Secure PLUS, which combines hardened security configurations with active antivirus protection. The system closes common attack vectors that bots typically exploit while providing regular vulnerability assessments and malware cleanup services.

Both solutions are backed by our security team’s expertise, trusted by over 500,000 sites and businesses worldwide. Starting at $29.50/month for Linux protection and $45/month for Windows environments, these enterprise-grade solutions make professional security accessible for businesses of all sizes.

Maintaining long-term bot protection

Security isn’t a one-time setup. Regular maintenance ensures your bot protection remains effective. If you’re managing it yourself, make sure you’re:

1. Monitoring server logs weekly for unusual patterns. Watch for spikes in traffic, repeated failed login attempts, or requests to non-existent pages. These often signal new bot attacks.
2. Keeping security tools current. Bot tactics evolve rapidly – outdated protection becomes ineffective. Liquid Web’s security services automatically update to counter emerging threats.
3. Testing your defenses periodically. Try accessing rate-limited endpoints or submitting forms rapidly to verify your protections work. Adjust thresholds based on legitimate usage patterns.

Remember that maintenance needs grow with your site. As traffic increases, you’ll need stronger protection. Liquid Web’s secure hosting solutions support your business in every stage of growth, from basic protection to enterprise-grade security.

Take control of your bot traffic

Bot traffic is no longer a peripheral concern but a critical aspect of website management. With nearly half of internet traffic originating from automated sources, businesses must adopt a proactive approach to bot detection and prevention.

Luckily, you don’t have to navigate the complex world of bot management alone. Liquid Web offers comprehensive security solutions tailored to your needs:

• Managed Hosting with built-in security
• Enterprise-grade protection: 24/7 expert monitoring and threat response

Specialized solutions:

1. Imunify360 PLUS for Linux servers: Real-time threat protection
2. Server Secure PLUS for Windows environments: Comprehensive security configurations

Explore Liquid Web’s hosting solutions today, or contact the support team to find the right solution for you.

measures in place, you can ensure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.