Spike in direct traffic - how to prevent bots

Question

I am managing two Wordpress sites and have noticed significant spikes in direct traffic that cannot be attributed to any marketing campaign or expected increase in activity.

The pattern is also unusual as the traffic is two hits on each individual page on any given day. Therefore I'm pretty sure its spam bot traffic - what can I do about this?

I cant identify the hostname in google analytics as it comes up as 'not set'. I already have Wordfence installed on the wordpress sites.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Answer 1

To make sure the traffic is being generated by bots, check if matches those indicators:

• Low average session duration.
• High bounce rate.
• Mostly new visitors.
• No goal completion.

In order to minimize the 'bad traffic' take into consideration the following actions:

• Exclude traffic from spiders and known bots at Analytics admin settings.
• Exclude bots by IP and User-agent. Check this blacklist.

I always recommend creating a new view with 'bad traffic' filtered (using the KPIs commented before). Don't forget to keep a raw data view.

Bot traffic is very tricky. You could also confirm new users with a captcha before registering their data.

Answer 2

Firstly

Steps to exclude all hits from known bots and spiders on Google Analytics

1. Go to your Admin settings.
2. Under the View panel, you’ll find View Settings.
3. Toward the bottom of the options, just before Site Search Settings, you’ll find a small heading for Bot Filtering with a checkbox that reads: "Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders".
4. Check it, and you’ll automatically filter the known bots and spiders from your Analytics collecting.

Secondly

• Exclude Internal Traffic (internal traffic has quite a share in direct traffic), maybe the number of your team members is increasing.
• Check This Out: Exclude Internal Traffic

Thirdly

• Check the search volume for your branded queries, that too can be associated with an increase in direct traffic

.