How to detect and avoid bot traffic?

[navaneet31]

Hey i have been searching since 3 hours to know how to filter the bot traffic. I am advertiser. I have observed i am getting fake traffic. I want to avoid them.

Please tell me some best software/tool names to prevent and detect the bot traffic. I heard about the thrivetracker I am not sure it is good or not but I want to know what is the best tool.

 

[tyoussef]

okay perfect i will reveal some tactics that lot of affiliates are using to filter bot traffic .
1 - set a rule like this => any placement with more then 90% CTR that's lot of bot traffic -> means cut the placement .
also placements with 100% CTR or near -> bot = cut .
2 - an other tactic is the invisible link . that means to use an invisible link that a normal human can't see , and pass the placement to the invisible link , and if you get clicks on that link means that's a bot .

 

[navaneet31]

Today i tried to do cloaking my page and i have seen that i am getting hell lot of hits from ffbot and adspy tools. Do u have any idea how we can block that ffbot. Might be a chance that cloaker is not working perfectly. I am not sure about the ffbot but the spy tool hits are legit. Any suggestion regarding this? Out of 100 I am getting 60% are ffbot and 10% are spy tools. As per analytics my CTR is 20% average and what you suggest about thrive bot filter module.

I already tried the pixel method yes. I found few bot visits not much. The only confusion is ffbot visits.

 

[no2pencil]

I have a script that twice a day will fetch blacklisted IPs from bots & known malicious hacking attempts. These IPs are then imported into my firewall.

 

[navaneet31]

How you know that ip is a malicious or bot? and from where it will fetch?

I have a script that twice a day will fetch blacklisted IPs from bots & known malicious hacking attempts. These IPs are then imported into my firewall.

 

[no2pencil]

I import the following two lists :
Complete List of Suspected Malicious IP Addresses
http://www.spamhaus.org/drop/drop.lasso

 

[navaneet31]

Hi a suggestion you can also try projecthoneypot. Its a very nice project currently I am using this. How much ur blacklist is effective to avoid bots?

 

[no2pencil]

To be clear, it's purpose is to block spam, so it won't detect something simply because it's a bot. But it goes a long way towards black-listed IPs than having nothing at all, which a lot of bots come from.

As for how effective it is against what it does block, I can only see the output of what was blocked, not it's purpose. The firewall is just dropping packets, so I have no way of knowing specifically if it was incoming email, a scan attempt by a bot, or malicious web traffic.

 

[Bloody Tourist]

Hey i have been searching since 3 hours to know how to filter the bot traffic. I am advertiser. I have observed i am getting fake traffic. I want to avoid them.

Please tell me some best software/tool names to prevent and detect the bot traffic. I heard about the thrivetracker I am not sure it is good or not but I want to know what is the best tool.

There's no 100% method, but @Matuloo has a nice guide: BOT traffic - How to detect fake hits and what to do about it! | Online Advertising Tips From Matuloo.Com

 

[navaneet31]

I already seen that tutorial thanx for the help. Yesterday i tried thrivetracker their bot filter sucks its blocked 99% of my traffic saying its a known bot as per the reports its impossible. My ctr is only 20% then there no way thrive can detect 99% of the traffic is bot. I sent an email to them awaiting for the reply.

 

[Sephrata]

okay perfect i will reveal some tactics that lot of affiliates are using to filter bot traffic .
1 - set a rule like this => any placement with more then 90% CTR that's lot of bot traffic -> means cut the placement .
also placements with 100% CTR or near -> bot = cut .
2 - an other tactic is the invisible link . that means to use an invisible link that a normal human can't see , and pass the placement to the invisible link , and if you get clicks on that link means that's a bot .

You can still have a very high CTR from genuine traffic if you're using certain javascripts (body click, back button, meta refresh etc), so you need to be careful about that.

Analysing your data is important. Look for patterns like IPs, user agents, browser languages etc.

I already seen that tutorial thanx for the help. Yesterday i tried thrivetracker their bot filter sucks its blocked 99% of my traffic saying its a known bot as per the reports its impossible. My ctr is only 20% then there no way thrive can detect 99% of the traffic is bot. I sent an email to them awaiting for the reply.

Are you direct linking or using a lander? Certain setups can cause this problem. I don't use Thrive, but I had an issue where I misspelt a URL token and it was being picked up as bot traffic from my scanner.

 

[tyoussef]

You can still have a very high CTR from genuine traffic if you're using certain javascripts (body click, back button, meta refresh etc),

of course he has to consider that

 

[navaneet31]

You can still have a very high CTR from genuine traffic if you're using certain javascripts (body click, back button, meta refresh etc), so you need to be careful about that.

Analysing your data is important. Look for patterns like IPs, user agents, browser languages etc.



Are you direct linking or using a lander? Certain setups can cause this problem. I don't use Thrive, but I had an issue where I misspelt a URL token and it was being picked up as bot traffic from my scanner.

I am using direct landing page. I use thrivetracker pixel method. Can some one guide me how to analyse the data.

 

[tyoussef]

I am using direct landing page. I use thrivetracker pixel method. Can some one guide me how to analyse the data.

just post screen shots here we will help you with that

 

[Linda N. Walton]

Hey i have been searching since 3 hours to know how to filter the bot traffic. I am advertiser. I have observed i am getting fake traffic. I want to avoid them.

Please tell me some best software/tool names to prevent and detect the bot traffic. I heard about the thrivetracker I am not sure it is good or not but I want to know what is the best tool.

See your requests on hosting, including IP, time lag of resuests and you find out it.