Bot traffic on a website is a common phenomenon. And this is true for all kinds of websites, regardless of their type and age. Well, what is bot traffic? You must be aware of this!
In the simplest sense, it is non-human trafficking. Website bots are programmed software that visits your website from time to time. They perform repetitive tasks according to the instructions fed, 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.
One point worth mentioning here is that bot traffic to a website is not always a bad thing, and the same goes for the opposite. That’s because there are two types of bots: good bots and bad bots. Good bots can help you automate tasks and are extremely important for ranking etc, but on the other hand, bad bots can greatly affect your online presence. Therefore, the need is to identify bad bot website traffic and take action to keep them away from your website.
OKAY!
But what are bad bots and how can they be dangerous for a website?
Is that what you’re thinking?
Here is the answer.
What is a Bad Bot?
A bad bot is programmed software designed to perform malicious acts. These bots are intent on harming your website or your visitors, which, in turn, can lead to a poor user experience and damage your brand image.
OK but how?
Why are Bad Bots Dangerous?
It’s because they can hurt you to the extent that you can’t even imagine. From brute force login attempts, stealing crucial information (related to products, services, financial data, etc.), spamming and copying all of your website content to ad fraud where malicious bots keep doing clicking paid ads on your website, DDoS attacks and full 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.
How to Protect Your Website from Bot Attacks
The first step in protecting your website from harmful bots is to identify that your site is under threat from harmful bots. And that itself has become hard.
Over time, bad bot programmers and hackers get smarter. They are devising ways through which they can escape the threat prevention mechanism. And one of the easiest ways is to appear genuine. After? What can you do to discover the potential threat? One unbeatable way is to be extremely cautious. Watch for suspicious or unreasonable activities. If you feel that something unusual is happening, act without delay.
Sounds good!
But what can be the warning signs that indicate a malicious bot attack on a website?
Is this what you’re thinking?
Excellent!
Let’s look at some of the activities that indicate the presence of malicious bot traffic.
- Repeated visits to the site from a single IP address.
- A high number of irrelevant comments.
- A sudden spike in web traffic and then the traffic returns to the normal range.
- Unusually high bounce rate.
- Questionable source of traffic.
Well, these are just a few points for early identification of bad bot traffic. For more information on this, it would be better to have professional assistance.
Well, that was about preliminary threat identification.
Expect!
Don’t you think it would be better to take measures so that you don’t have to face any problem from bad bot attack?
Of course!
So let’s look at some manageable techniques to discourage malicious bot attack on your website and protect it.
Ideas to Keep Bad Bots Away from Your Website
Deploy smart software
Using the software is one of the best ways to save your website from harmful bots. But what kind of software? Well, there are various types of software available to help you deal with bad bots, such as bad bot scanners and bad bot analyzers. With them, you can check how well your website is protected against bad bots and view data like bot traffic etc.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Requiring more than one credential to access a website helps you prevent malicious bot attacks, because even if they manage to get to the right place for one of the login factors, they can still satisfy the next requirement.
Use captcha
It is one of the ways, but there is no guarantee of its success in keeping malicious bots away from your website. Although this method used to be successful once, its effectiveness in preventing malicious bots has decreased.
Employ web application firewall (WAF)
The advanced WAF solution can be very effective against malicious bot web traffic as it can identify both simple and sophisticated bots. Uses technology + behavioral data to detect and block bad bots.
