There are no specific methods to identify fake traffic on your website.
While many believe it is a blessing in disguise, artificially inflated numbers can cause more harm than good. Making sure your website is receiving quality traffic, not traffic created by bots is a must.
To ensure that you need to use a few tools and methods. Not many know the right methods, and the process can be quite confusing as well. In this write-up, we will be talking about 10 ways to filter fake website traffic.
By the way, you can buy web traffic by Babylon. there are provide 100% quality services and make sure target customer and human traffic.
What Is Fake Website Traffic?
Bad traffic or fake traffic can come in many forms. Fake traffic refers to traffic generated by bots, software, etc. Any traffic on your website that is not generated by real users or humans falls under this category.
Identifying fake traffic is quite simple.
When you notice a sudden increase in website traffic, that is likely fake traffic. For example, if your website receives 500 views daily, and all of a sudden it is receiving 50,000 views.
Yes, an increase in traffic is not always a bad sign. However, if all the visitors are sharing the browser or IP address then it is most certainly not organic.
Another sign of fake traffic is when the visitors are spending a few seconds on the website. Sure, every visitor will not spend hours on your website. But when new visitors are spending just a few seconds on your website, you should be concerned.
If your site sees an increase in traffic but the user interaction remains the same, then it is probably fake traffic. The comments under your blogs will increase a little if it was quality traffic.
In addition, if your website is targeted toward English-speaking countries, but the visitors are from a non-English speaking country. Then it is probably fake traffic as well.
On the other hand, you can buy website traffic to grow your business. Traffic Masters, a paid traffic generator.
How To Filter Fake Website Traffic
The internet is infested with millions of bots using shared IP addresses. It is impossible to stop fake traffic from infiltrating your website, but you can filter it. Here are 10 ways to filter fake website traffic:
1. Google Webmaster:
You can take the help of Google webmaster tools to monitor website analytics. With the help of a webmaster, you will be able to see a list of errors and receive email alerts too.
Webmaster will release its own set of bots on your website. Don’t worry because these are good bots. These bots will then alert you against fake traffic. With the help of google webmaster, you will know when;
- Your site is facing a malware attack
- Server connectivity issues occur
- If the pages are not indexed properly.
2. Strict Monitoring:
As mentioned previously, taking the help of Google tools such as Webmaster, and Analytics can help you greatly. Adding filters in Google Analytics will help you block out crawler spams, ghost spams, etc.
However, these filters have limitations too. There are times these filters will not be much of use even when the traffic is inorganic and spammy.
In this case, monitoring the server log manually every week will certainly help you. By doing manual monitoring, you can identify fake traffic yourself, and block it from the server.
3. Firewall Is A Must:
Firewall acts as a literal wall between the server and the virtual space. It works excellently in terms of protecting your site from bots. Tools like Cloudflare are great for detecting and filtering fake traffic. This tool is not completely free.
However, it offers a free bot fight mode which will work perfectly for getting rid of malicious bots from your website
4. Google Chrome:
Using google chrome to browse web pages is a good idea. Chrome can detect malware. So when you are using Google Chrome, your computer will rarely catch malware.
And it is recommended that you use Google Chrome to check out suspicious sites and sources from Google Analytics traffic reports.
5. Block banned users:
Blocking banned users that use spam bots is a great way to protect your website from fake traffic. You need to analyze server log files every week to identify and block these banned users.
Use the search bar to find known banned user agents. You can create a database with them and later detect them on your website. Don’t forget to regularly update the database.
To block banned users, follow the steps mentioned:
RewriteEngineOn
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Baiduspider [NC]
RewriteRule .* – [F,L]
6. Professional Assistance:
Taking professional assistance for your website security is a great option if you don't have the time or opportunity to do it yourself. Besides, the person in charge will have more and stronger tools than you to protect your website from spam and fake traffic.
Professional assistance ensures your site receives 24-hour protection against unwanted and malicious bots.
7. Block Referral Spam:
The most effective way to stop referral spam from infesting your site is by creating a configuration file.
You can instruct the file to block referral spam, ghost spam, etc.
You have to add the code mentioned below as it is to the .htaccess file. If you are using IIS, then add the code to your web configuration.
RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https?://([^.]+.)*buttons-for-website.com [NC,OR]
RewriteRule .* – [F]
8. IP address Blocking:
Many do not find IP address blocking effective as spam bots use rotating IPs. However, some bots share IPs so this method can be useful. The most effective way is to systematically block the IP addresses of the spam bots you notice on your website. It is not wise to block all known IPs as it can make the .htaccess file harder to manage.
You can add the code mentioned below to the .htaccess file. Please note that the IP mentioned below is not real, so you don’t need to copy that into your .htaccess file. Instead of using that IP, just mention the IP address you would like to block.
RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from 234.45.12.33
9. Blocking Ranges of IPs:
As said previously, blocking IP addresses is not always effective. However, there are times when you may notice that most of the fake traffic coming to your site is sharing the same source. If you are confident about the range of IPs used by these spam bots, then you can block the entire range at once.
This action is more useful since you are blocking an entire range instead of blocking IPs separately. It reduces server space usage and does not make the server harder to manage either.
Add the code mentioned below.
RewriteEngineOn
Options +FollowSymlinks
Denyfrom 76.149.24.0/24 A
llow from all
10. Use reCAPTCHA:
To protect login pages and payment forms from malicious bots, use reCAPTCHA. It is one of the most commonly used forms of website security. But it is also astonishingly strong as today’s bots can barely move past this step.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the abovementioned 10 ways to filter fake website traffic will help you get rid of all the nasty bots from your precious website. There are multiple ways to protect your site from malicious bots. And here we have handpicked the best methods that will provide guaranteed success.