Bots: What They Are and How To Stop Them
Free IP lookup API to uncover fraud, bots, and high risk users.
When malicious internet bots visit your site, they are there to actively do you and your users harm. So, what is a bot, when are they dangerous and what should you do about them? Keep reading to learn more about:
What’s a bot?
An internet bot is any automated program designed to crawl or interact with websites, apps, and APIs. At their core they aren’t good or bad, bots are used to gather information from a server or perform tasks for users. However, bad bots can have an outsized negative impact on your website:
- Slowing down or crashing your website
- Wasting ad spend with click and impression fraud
- Fake leads and conversions
- Gathering information for your competitors
- Raising your IT costs
- Compromising your data or customer’s data
- Preventing you from complying with data protection regulations
Bad Internet Bots
Bad bots only benefit their malicious creators, and sometimes not even them. They hurt both users and the web services they rely on. Bad bots will often ignore robots.txt directives or other server rules, mask their identities, or act in an aggressive or atypical manner compared to the average user. The common types of bad internet bots you’ll see include:
- Click fraud bots: If you’ve ever had to prove you were a human before being allowed to log into one of your accounts, the reason is because of click fraud. Click fraud bots pretend to be typical website visitors authentically clicking on an ad, generating revenue or traffic to another website.
- Spambots: We’ve all been victims of spam, and the culprit behind it is spambots. Spambots can send unsolicited messages to many recipients at once and then attempt to commit fraud on unsuspecting users who respond.
- Social media bots: Bots can create accounts, post, comment and even interact with people on social media platforms. Platforms struggle to keep bots out and may be accidentally enabling or boosting them.
- Content scraping bots: While good bots index website content for search engines, content scraping bots crawl websites, stealing content and republishing it, sometimes even mirroring an entire website.
- Credential stuffing bots: When a website or company experiences a data breach, usernames and passwords are collected. Credential stuffing bots take that stolen information and brute force their way into user accounts.
- Shopping/ticketing bots: Bots designed to purchase items or event tickets that have a limited supply and then offer to resell them at an increased price.
- DDoS bots: Networks of bots that can be coordinated to overload a server with requests, effectively neutralizing the server’s ability to function.
- Botnet Malware: While not bots in the traditional sense, malware bots distribute malware in nefarious ways or infect a device to act as part of a larger botnet.
By far, the most common malicious bot encountered online are the ad fraud and financial exploitation bots because there is the most to gain monetarily from their use. Click fraud, impression fraud, financial scams, and fake conversions can all cost advertisers and websites.
Good Internet Bots
Good bots add value to user experience while abiding by a platform’s terms of service. Without good automated bots, search engines, social platforms and websites would be severely limited. Good bots include:
- Content Discovery & Indexing Bots: These bots explore, read, organize and serve content, making it more accessible to users. The most commonly used are search engine bots or social media crawlers.
- Data & Feed Aggregators: Specializing in collecting and synthesizing information from multiple sources, these bots create more personalized web experiences. Think custom news or RSS feeds.
- User/Service Bots: Programs designed to engage directly with users, offering assistance or information. AI chat bots or interactive set-up wizards are available for most websites.
- Performance, Security & Maintenance Bots: These bots work behind the scenes to ensure the health, stability, and integrity of websites and online services by continuously monitoring the server.
- Analytical & Research Bots: Working in the background to collect data for analysis, used for marketing or brand monitoring activities.
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Signs of Bot Traffic & How To Detect
Bot traffic can be identified through three key indicator types: traffic patterns, user behavior and technical anomalies.
Traffic Pattern Red Flags:
- Unusual activity during off-peak hours
- Sudden page view increases without corresponding quality improvements
- Abnormally high bounce rates
- Traffic surges accompanied by declining conversion rates
Behavioral Indicators:
- Identical user actions across multiple visitors
- Superhuman browsing speeds
- Repetitive, programmed-like behavior that lacks human variability
- Traffic surges accompanied by declining conversion rates
Technical Signatures:
- Suspicious user data and user agent strings
- Questionable IP origins (variant from most users)
How To Detect Bots
Detecting bots requires a layered approach revolving around these core detection techniques:
- IP & Geolocation Analysis: Monitors IPs against bot databases and flags suspicious locations, accomplished through an API integration.
- Behavioral Analysis: Using analytics tools, tracks user interactions (mouse movements, keystrokes, navigation) to detect unnatural patterns like higher than usual bounce rates or lowered conversions.
- Device Fingerprinting: Identifies bots using headless browsers or users lacking authentic device/hardware specs.
- Traffic Source Analysis: Examines visitor origins and referrals flagging bots from obscure domains or locations with unnatural patterns.
- Machine Learning Models: AI algorithms analyze behavioral/technical data to identify evolving threats and unknown bot signatures
Monitor your analytics for combinations of these indicators rather than isolated incidents. Bots attempt to mimic human behavior but their programming limitations create detectable patterns when analyzed collectively. If you’re unsure if your website is the victim of bots, read our Guide To Detecting Bots where we dive deep into the indicators and logistics of identifying bots.
How to Prevent Malicious Bot Traffic
Bot traffic cannot be completely eliminated, but proper prevention measures can significantly reduce exposure. Around 18% of ad interactions are fraudulent, primarily from bots conducting click and impression fraud. There are five core prevention categories:
- Client & User Verification: Requires users to prove human identity through passwords, multi-factor authentication, and CAPTCHA challenges.
- Source & Reputation Analysis: Assesses traffic trustworthiness based on known malicious sources, geographic origins, and dynamic risk scoring.
- Behavioral Anomaly Flagging: Analyzes interaction patterns, device characteristics, and uses bot traps to identify non-human behavior.
- Traffic Shaping & Rule-Based Filtering: Manages traffic flow through predefined rules and policies to filter unwanted requests.
- Platforms & Infrastructure Defense: Comprehensive solutions combining multiple detection techniques or leveraging infrastructure to absorb large-scale attacks.
Basic Level (minimal bot blocking needs, limited technical expertise required):
- CAPTCHAs on forms and login pages
- Robots.txt file configuration for well-behaved bots
- Strong password policies against brute-force attacks
- Manual IP blocking of known malicious addresses
- Setup traffic monitoring and user behavior reporting
Advanced Level (requires technical implementation):
- IP blocklists (public/private) with regular updates
- Geo-blocking from non-target or high-risk locations
- Web Application Firewalls with managed bot rulesets
- Rate limiting and request throttling
- Multi-factor authentication for account protection
- Honeypots using hidden fields to identify and trap bots
Enterprise Level (sophisticated defense for high-value targets):
- IP risk scoring APIs with automated blocking thresholds
- Device fingerprinting for repeat offender identification
- AI/ML behavioral analysis for real-time bot detection
- Custom API security with authentication and monitoring
- Specialized bot management platforms with comprehensive reporting
- Infrastructure optimization through CDNs and advanced caching
Malicious bot traffic makes up nearly 40 percent of all web traffic. According to new research from Fraudlogix, bots and ad fraud make up almost 16% of ad impressions globally. Choose prevention methods based on attack scale, severity, digital ad spend, and technical capabilities. Learn why it’s most effective when multiple techniques are combined in a layered defense in our resource, How To Stop Bots On Your Website.
How Ad Exchanges, DSPs & SSPs Deal With Bots
Ad exchanges, DSPs, SSPs, and publishers must reduce bot fraud to maintain advertiser confidence and campaign effectiveness. Poor bot protection leads to reduced marketing spend on platforms and unhappy ad buyers and publishers. Exchanges have four core prevention strategies:
- Proactive Bot Prevention: First-line defense blocking fraudulent activity before platform entry by filtering traffic before it hits the site and implementing third-party pre-bid fraud verification.
- Real-Time Monitoring & Anomaly Detection: Continuous systems identifying bots that breach initial defenses with bot identification software, traffic anomaly detection and rate limiting for users.
- Supply Chain Transparency: Clear visibility eliminating hidden bot operation opportunities using sellers.json and direct publisher partnerships to vett preferred marketplace access.
- Post-Campaign Accountability: Continuous improvement through comprehensive fraud analysis, post-bid auditing and transparency metrics.
These interconnected systems transform platforms from passive marketplaces into actively secured environments, demonstrating quality commitment beyond basic compliance and positioning exchanges as premium destinations where advertising dollars are protected. For more on this, read our overview of How Ad Exchanges Minimize Bot Traffic.
Fraudlogix has provided bot vendor solutions to some of the largest platforms in AdTech & MarTech and is standing by, ready to help your company gain visibility and improve performance. Contact us with your questions or learn more about how we can help prevent bot traffic to your site.