Nobody likes bots. They mess with your performance metrics and in some cases can be harmful. So how do you stop them?
Here are some ways to keep your site protected:
- CAPTCHA Method: There are a lot of CAPTCHA options out there as a good first wall against bot users continuing on your site or forms. However, because bots are always finding ways around them, it is not advised to used CAPTCHAs alone.
- Using Hidden Fields: Use a hidden/dummy field as a trap to bots automatically filling out every field. A real user wouldn’t be able to see it with a little CSS hiding. Be wary of using this on high-ranking pages because search engines do not appreciate hidden fields.
- Log Files: Log files can help you in identifying and partially stopping the bots. You can block certain IP addresses (be careful when excluding public addresses) to filter out this bot activity.
- Honeypots: Honeypots are incentives used as a trap to reveal new bots. These should be managed very carefully because search engine bots (a.k.a. the good kind of bots) may think you have dead, fake links on your page.
- In-house Bot Prevention: In-house bot prevention is great for consistent monitoring and blocking. Just be aware that the accuracy and consistency vary drastically as it is still a manual, error-prone process.
- Automated Bot Prevention Solutions: Anti-bot solutions create algorithms to detect the pattern of the malicious bots and differentiate them from humans. Almost like fighting bots with smarter bots.
Radware helps businesses keep bot traffic at bay and specializes in cloud protection. So they know their stuff! Check out their full post to learn more about bot traffic prevention.
