The controversial issues in the search engine market during this period are bot traffic and SEO implementation or outcomes.
In this era, most bot spamming or bot traffic is grown dramatically; the reason can be the use of black hat SEO techniques or the use of self-generated and wrong digital marketing strategies. Most unscrupulous companies use bot traffic to trick their clients and make them think they offer very effective and efficient services, but they aren’t.
In this discussion, we focus on how bots traffic affects SEO, whether you must carry some action or how badly your organic search can be affected.
What are Bots?
Let’s discuss foremost what bots are; ahead of moving towards our topic, let’s learn about the phrase “bot”. Bots are computer schedules developed to collect data and information from the internet and accomplish jobs and scripts automatically, like indexing and crawling. There are two primary types:
1- Useful Bots are those who operate for essential activities for the web, and they perform as they have been assigned. Some duties include indexing website pages, web crawling and many similar duties that run in the backdrop of the system.
2- Evil Bots are operated to attain attention and perform illegal or harmful activities which cause issues to the digital web performance. These bots perform tasks that even humans can not able to do. The most common use of evil bots is to fall or break software, websites, and platforms to get benefits.
Useful Bots List
- General Marketing Bots
- Website Controlling Bots
- Social Bots
- Search Engine Bots
Harmful Bots List
- Malevolent Strike Bots
- Spammy Bots
- Scrape Bots
- Impostor Click Bots
Is Bot Traffic Bad for SEO?
Bot Traffic is not as bad for SEO. They define if any harmful bot or non-human guest visits your website directly or via a referral domain. Some bots are designed to give valuable information. Likewise, Semrush or Ahref bots and others that play an essential role are Google Search Bots. They use to maintain the website’s usability and visibility in search results.
Meanwhile, some other bots are used to scrape valuable information and data from a website, also known as Data Scraping. In 2022, it’s calculated that most traffic comes from bots. And a vast number of malicious bots are waiting to get into the systems and attack the information over the internet.
So, how good or bad is this for SEO? To answer this query, John Mueller reacted with a tweet to the user’s request about the importance of bots and SEO.
Question: We are noticing a lot of bot traffic coming in and it’s tagged under organic traffic, will this have an adverse effect or does google ignore this?
Answer: from John Mueller: That has no effect on Google Search.
So then, reasonably uncomplicated. SEO performance doesn’t affect by any Bot Traffic.
What Are the Signs of Bot Traffic?
Many revealing signs you can notice that will explain that a website is having bot traffic coming. Some most common and simple ways to find out if the bot is around your website include:
- Notably, Increase in Page Views: You can see these changes in some of the selected pages of your website, especially the pages that are not visible in organic search results or rank on a keyword.
- Decrease In Session Count: Bots visit a page for a short time, seconds and leave the website.
- Bounce Rate Increased: Quick visit of bots increases the website’s bounce rate very much, as they visit just one page and jump back fast.
- Visit From Single Area: Bots mostly use a single IP address, which will help you identify that the visitors from one of the top locations are from bots. But, you will identify bot traffic when you realize the traffic is coming from countries you are not targeting.
- Lowers the Server Response: You will notice that the server performance slows down a bit whenever a bot visits your site. Which is a vital sign of a bot visit.
The most helpful tool, in this case, is Google Analytics, as it knows what a routine visit is like, and it effectively separates the bot and organic traffic. Due to using scripts and other programs, Google Analytics reports missing the Bots, Spiders and crawlers.
To find the root of bot traffic, you should look at the traffic source in Google Analytics reports. You can also check out the other reports generated by multiple webmasters who have reported the same issues in the past. And by analyzing the reports, you can make your next move and or hire an SEO expert to assist you.
Covering Up:
So now it’s clear that Bot Traffic does not purely hit SEO working. Still, as per John Mueller – bot traffic does not instantly affect any Search engine optimisation implementation or website rankings.
As there are multiple kinds of bots in 2022 that can affect the information you get from various reporting tools, non-venomous bots don’t harm your rankings and visibility in SERPs.
