Regular Expressions for Filtering BOT Traffic?
-
I've set up a filter to remove bot traffic from Analytics. I relied on regular expressions posted in an article that eliminates what appears to be most of them.
However, there are other bots I would like to filter but I'm having a hard time determining the regular expressions for them.
How do I determine what the regular expression is for additional bots so I can apply them to the filter?
I read an Analytics "how to" but its over my head and I'm hoping for some "dumbed down" guidance.
-
No problem, feel free to reach out if you have any other RegEx related questions.
Regards,
Chris
-
I will definitely do that for Rackspace bots, Chris.
Thank you for taking the time to walk me through this and tweak my filter.
I'll give the site you posted a visit.
-
If you copy and paste my RegEx, it will filter out the rackspace bots. If you want to learn more about Regular Expressions, here is a site that explains them very well, though it may not be quite kindergarten speak.
-
Crap.
Well, I guess the vernacular is what I need to know.
Knowing what to put where is the trick isn't it? Is there a dummies guide somewhere that spells this out in kindergarten speak?
I could really see myself botching this filtering business.
-
Not unless there's a . after the word servers in the name. The . is escaping the . at the end of stumbleupon inc.
-
Does it need the . before the )
-
Ok, try this:
^(microsoft corp|inktomi corporation|yahoo! inc.|google inc.|stumbleupon inc.|rackspace cloud servers)$|gomez
Just added rackspace as another match, it should work if the name is exactly right.
Hope this helps,
Chris
-
Agreed! That's why I suggest using it in combination with the variables you mentioned above.
-
rackspace cloud servers
Maybe my problem is I'm not looking in the right place.
I'm in audience>technology>network and the column shows "service provider."
-
How is it titled in the ISP report exactly?
-
For example,
Since I implemented the filter four days ago, rackspace cloud servers have visited my site 848 times, , visited 1 page each time, spent 0 seconds on the page and bounced 100% of the time.
What is the reg expression for rackspace?
-
Time on page can be a tricky one because sometimes actual visits can record 00:00:00 due to the way it is measured. I'd recommend using other factors like the ones I mentioned above.
-
"...a combination of operating system, location, and some other factors can do the trick."
Yep, combined with those, look for "Avg. Time on Page = 00:00:00"
-
Ok, can you provide some information on the bots that are getting through this that you want to sort out? If they are able to be filtered through the ISP organization as the ones in your current RegEx, you can simply add them to the list: (microsoft corp| ... ... |stumbleupon inc.|ispnamefromyourbots|ispname2|etc.)$|gomez
Otherwise, you might need to get creative and find another way to isolate them (a combination of operating system, location, and some other factors can do the trick). When adding to the list, make sure to escape special characters like . or / by using a \ before them, or else your RegEx will fail.
-
Sure. Here's the post for filtering the bots.
Here's the reg x posted: ^(microsoft corp|inktomi corporation|yahoo! inc.|google inc.|stumbleupon inc.)$|gomez
-
If you give me an idea of how you are isolating the bots I might be able to help come up with a RegEx for you. What is the RegEx you have in place to sort out the other bots?
Regards,
Chris
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Site under attack from Android SEO bots - expert help needed
For last 25 days, we are facing a weird attack on our site. We are getting 10x the normal mobile traffic - all from Android, searching for our name specifically. We are sure that this is not authentic traffic as the traffic is coming from Organic searches and bouncing off. Initially, we thought this was a DDoS attack, but that does not seem to be the case. It looks like someone is trying to damage our Google reputation by performing too many searches and bouncing off. Has any one else faced a similar issue before? What can be done to mitigate the impact on site. (FYI - we get ~2M visits month on month, 80% from Google organic searches). Any help would be highly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KJ_AV0 -
How to Target Country Specific Website Traffic?
I have a website with .com domain but I need to generate traffic from UK? I have already set my GEO Targeting location as UK in Google Webmasters & set country location as UK in Google Analytics as well but still, i get traffic only from India. I have also set Geo-targeting code at the backend of the website. But nothing seems works. Can anyone help me how can is do this? I am unable to understand what else can be done.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoninj0 -
Traffic has not recovered from https switch a year ago.
I have an ecommerce site that was switched to https a year ago almost to the day. Our category pages are about half of what they were. The redirects were put in properly, and everything in webmaster tools looks good. Anything out there I may not have thought of? Want to add that the drop is only in Google, Bing stayed just fine.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Site experiencing drop in Google rankings and organic traffic after redesign.
Hello, The company that I work for recently implemented a complete redesign for our company website. The former site was old, cumbersome and in desperate need of an update. We streamlined the site structure and made sure to redirect as many pages as we could find to new thematically related pages with 301 redirects. After the launch of our new site we saw a large upswing in "soft" 404 errors despite the fact that most of these pages do redirect upon inspection. So in relation to the soft 404s, for example, is it merely a matter of labeling them as fixed if they redirect properly, or could their be an underling issue with the site itself? Also, a majority or the urls labeled "not found" in webmaster tools are properly redirected. Do these merely need to be marked as fixed, or is there something else that needs to be fixed like the sitemap structure? I appreciate any and all input. Beyond Indigo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeyondIndigo1 -
Search traffic decline after redesign and new URL
Howdy Mozzers I’ve been a Moz fan since 2005, and been doing SEO since. This is my first major question to the community! I just started working for a new company in-house, and we’ve uncovered a serious problem. This is a bit of a long one, so I’m hoping you’ll stick it out with me! ***Since the images aren't working, here's a link to the google doc with images. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I-iLDjBXI4d59Kl3uRMwLvpihWWKF3bQFTTNRb1R3ZM/edit?usp=sharing Background The site has gone through a few changes in the past few years. Drupal 5 and 6 hosted at bcbusinessonline.ca and now on Drupal 7 hosted at bcbusiness.ca. The redesigned responsive design site launched on January 9th, 2013. This includes changing the structure of the URL’s, such as categories, tags, and articles. We submitted a change of address through GWT shortly after the change. Problem Organic site traffic is down 50% over the last three months. Below, Google analytics, and Google Webmaster Tools shows the decline. *They used the same UA number for Google analytics, so that’s why the data is continuous
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Canada_wide_mediaOrganic traffic to the site. January 2011 - Dips in January are because of the business crowd on holidays.
Google Webmaster Tools data exported for bcbusiness.ca starting as far back as I could get. Redirects During the switch, the site went from bcbusinessonline.ca to bcbusiness.ca. They were implemented as 302’s on January 9th, 2013 to test, then on January 15th, they were all made 301’s. Here is how they were set up: Original: http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/bcb/bc-blogs/conference/2010/10/07/11-phrases-never-use-your-resume --301-- http://www.bcbusiness.ca/bcb/bc-blogs/conference/2010/10/07/11-phrases-never-use-your-resume --301-- http://www.bcbusiness.ca/careers/11-phrases-never-to-use-on-your-resume Canonical issue On bcbusiness.ca, there are article pages (example) that are paginated. All of the page 2 to page N were set to the first page of the article. We addressed this issue by removing the canonical tag completely from the site on April 16th, 2013. Then, by walking through the Ayima Pagination Guide we decided for immediate and least work choice was to noindex, follow all the pages that simply list articles (example). Google Algorithm Changes (Penguin or Panda) According to SEOmoz Google Algorithm Changes there is no releases that could have impacted our site at the February 20th ballpark. However - Sitemap We have a sitemap submitted to Google Webmaster Tools, and currently have 4,229 pages indexed of 4,312 submitted. But there are a few pages we looked at that there is an inconsistency between what GWT is reporting and what a “site:” search reports. Why would the submit to index button be showing, if it’s in the index?
That page is in the sitemap. Updated: 2012-11-28T22:08Z Change Frequency: Yearly Priority: 0.5
*GWT Index Stats from bcbusiness.ca What we looked at so far The redirects are all currently 301’s GWT is reporting good DNS, Server Connectivity, and Robots.txt Fetch We don’t have noindex or nofollow on pages where we haven’t intended them to be. Robots.txt isn’t blocking GoogleBot, or any pages we want to rank. We have added nofollow to all ‘Promoted Content’ or paid advertising / advertorials We had TextLinkAds on our site at one point but I removed them once I satarted working here (April 1). Sitemaps were linking to the old URL, but now updated (April)
1 -
Regular Expression / Wildcard Redirect Situation
I am dealing with an interesting situation. Here's what's going on: Current URLs Example1:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NakulGoyal
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234-1.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234.html New URL:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-4567.html Current URLs Example2:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10-1.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10.html New URL:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789.html I want to make sure all variations of the above URL redirect to the new url. What wildcard 301 redirect / regular expression can I use to tackle these ?0 -
When you provide traffic estimates, do you factor in CTR?
There are several studies that show CTR based on position. When a client asks for traffic estimates do you multiply CTR by estimated search volume? Why or why not?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0
