Bot traffic on a website is a common phenomenon. And this is true for all kinds of websites, irrespective of type and age. Well, what’s bot traffic? You must be aware of this!
In the simplest sense, it’s the non-human traffic. The website bots are programmed software, visiting your website from time to time. They perform repetitive tasks as per fed instructions, without any human intervention. And what could be the purpose of bots visiting a website? Well, that depends because there are different types of bots.
A point worth mentioning here is that bot traffic on a website is not always a bad thing, and the same is true otherwise. That’s because there are two types of bots – good bots and bad bots. Good bots can help you automate the tasks and are extremely important for ranking, etc., but on the other hand, bad bots can hit your online presence really hard. So, the need is to identify the bad bots website traffic and take steps to keep them distant from your website.
Okay!
But what are bad bots, and how they can be dangerous for a website?
Is that what you are thinking?
Here’s the answer.
A bad bot is the programmed software designed to perform malicious acts. These bots intend to hurt your website or its visitors, which, in turn, can lead to poor user experience and can cause damage to your brand image.
Okay, but how?
It’s because they can harm you to the extent that you can’t even imagine. Right from brute-force login attempts, stealing crucial information (related to products, services, financial data, etc.), spamming, and copying the entire content of your website to ad frauds wherein bad bots keep clicking on the paid ads on your website, DDoS attacks and complete website hacking, bad bots can do anything. Well, whatever they do, your loss is inevitable. It could be a loss of money, information, reputation, etc.
The first step towards protecting your website from bad bots is, identifying that your site is under threat of bad bots. And that itself has become hard.
With time, the programmers of bad bots and hackers are becoming smarter. They are coming up with ways through which they can escape from the threat prevention mechanism. And one of the easiest ways is to appear genuine. Then? What can you do to find out the potential threat? An unbeatable way is to become extra-cautious. Keep a watch on suspicious or unreasonable activities. If you feel that something unusual is happening, act without any delay.
Sounds good!
But what can be the warning signs indicating an attack of bad bots on a website?
Is this what you are thinking?
Great!
Let’s look at some of the activities signalling about the presence of bad bots’ traffic.
Well, these are just a few points for early identification of the bad bots traffic. For more information on this, it would be better to take professional assistance.
Okay, that was about the preliminary threat identification.
Wait!
Don’t you think better would be to take measures so that you need not face any issues of a bad bot attack?
Of course!
So, let’s see some manageable techniques to discourage the attack of bad bots on your website and safeguard the same.
Using the software is one of the great ways to save your website from bad bots. But what kind of software? Well, several types of software are available to help you deal with bad bots like bad bots scanners and bad bots analysers. With them, you can check how well your website is guarded against bad bots and see data like bots traffic, etc.
The requirement of more than one credential for accessing a website helps you prevent bad bots attacks as even if they manage to hit the right spot for one of the login factors, they can satisfy the next requirement is hardly a possibility.
It’s one of the ways, but there is no assurance of its success in keeping bad bots away from your website. Though this method used to be successful once, its efficacy of preventing bad bots has decreased.
The advanced WAF solution can be highly effective against bad bots web traffic as it can identify simple to sophisticated bots. It uses technology + behavioural data to detect and block the bad bots.
Here you have the ultimate option. Partner with a reputed bot management agency and let them look after the safety needs of your website. Depending upon the requirements, they will suggest you the best bad bot protection solution.
Technological advancements are contributing to the betterment. But undeniably, people having ill-motive are also deriving benefits from it. And that’s evident from the rise in malicious activities on the internet. With time, “bad bot” traffic on the website is increasing. According to the recent report of Imperva, in 2020, nearly 1/4th of the total website traffic was bad bots traffic. Yes, 25.6% of traffic was that of bad bots. Isn’t it terrible? Yes, it is. So, it’s crucial to apply essential security measures to keep bad bots away. We believe the ideas highlighted above will help you cut the bad bots traffic while enhancing your website’s safety. And if you are looking for a solution to some specific bad bot related problem, the best is to consult a bot management company.
That’s all for now. If you have any suggestions to keep bad bots away from the website, kindly drop a comment.
