What is Bot Filtering? Examples in Analytics

Bot filtering

Filtering out automated bot traffic in analytics to maintain accurate, human-only data and metrics.

Why Bot Filtering Matters

• Protect data integrity

  Bots can generate fake pageviews, sessions, and events, leading to inflated traffic numbers and misleading trends.

• Accurate conversion metrics

  Filtering out bots ensures conversion rates reflect real user behavior, guiding better marketing and product decisions.

• Improve resource allocation

  Clean data helps prioritize budget and development efforts based on genuine user engagement rather than automated noise.

Common Bot Filtering Techniques

• User-agent & ip filtering

  Block known bot user agents and IP ranges via server rules or analytics settings.

  • User-agent filtering:

    Identify and exclude traffic based on updated lists of bot and spider user-agent strings.

  • Ip address blocking:

    Exclude requests from known data centers, hosting providers, or suspicious IP ranges.

• Behavioral analysis

  Detect bots by analyzing patterns like rapid page loads, zero interaction time, or impossible navigation paths.

• Javascript challenges & honeypots

  Use script execution and hidden elements to distinguish real browsers from simple crawlers.

  • Javascript execution:

    Require clients to run JS code, filtering out bots that do not execute scripts.

  • Honeypot fields:

    Embed hidden form fields or links; bots filling or following them reveal non-human activity.

• Rate limiting & captcha

  Throttle excessive requests or prompt challenges to confirm human interaction.

Bot Filtering in Plainsignal

• Out-of-the-box bot exclusion

  PlainSignal leverages updated bot lists and behavior analysis to silently remove non-human traffic.

• Cookie-free tracking

  Maintains user privacy by avoiding cookies while still distinguishing bots from real users.

• Implementation snippet

  Embed the following snippet in your HTML to start tracking with PlainSignal’s built-in bot filtering:

  • Example snippet:

    <link rel="preconnect" href="//eu.plainsignal.com/" crossorigin /><script defer data-do="yourwebsitedomain.com" data-id="0GQV1xmtzQQ" data-api="//eu.plainsignal.com" src="//cdn.plainsignal.com/PlainSignal-min.js"></script>

Bot Filtering in Google Analytics 4

• Built-in known bot & spider filtering

  Enable the toggle in GA4 Admin > Data Settings to exclude traffic from the IAB’s list of known bots and spiders.

• Configuring internal traffic filters

  Define and exclude traffic from your own organization or staging environments based on IP or device parameters.

  • Internal traffic definition:

    Set rules under Admin > Data Streams > More Tagging Settings > Define Internal Traffic.

  • Data filter application:

    Apply an Exclude filter to drop internal traffic before it appears in reports.

• Custom event & parameter filtering

  Create event or user-property filters to drop or flag suspicious traffic patterns beyond known bots.

  • Event filter rules:

    Use matching conditions on event names and parameters to exclude unwanted hits.

• Example ga4 setup

  Integrate GA4 with basic tracking code; bot filtering settings are applied administratively rather than via code:

  • Example tracking code:

    <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XXXXXXXXXX"></script>
    <script>
      window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
      function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}  
      gtag('js', new Date());
      gtag('config', 'G-XXXXXXXXXX');
    </script>
    

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