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
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Onpage Reviews, SEO & Traffic Uplift
Hi I wondered if anyone knew of any case studies to reinforce the importance of on page reviews for SEO & increasing traffic. I'd like to push it in my company, however it would be great to show them some results from a case study. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Wordpress to HubSpot CMS - I had major crawl issues post launch and now traffic is down 400%
Hi there good looking person! Our traffic went from 12k visitors in july to 3k visitors in july. << www.thedsmgroup.com >>When we moved our site from wordpress to the hubspot COS (their CMS system), I didnt submit a new sitemap to google webmaster tools. I didn't know that I had to... and to be honest, I've never submitted or re-submitted a sitemap to GWT. I have always built clean sites with fresh content and good internal linking and never worried about it. Yoast kind of took care of the rest, as all of my sites and our clients' sites were always on wordpress. Well, lesson learned. I got this message on June 27th in GWT_http://www.thedsmgroup.com/: Increase in not found errors__Google detected a significant increase in the number of URLs that return a 404 (Page Not Found) error. Investigating these errors and fixing them where appropriate ensures that Google can successfully crawl your site's pages._One month after our site launched we had 1,000 404s on our website. Ouch. Google thought we had a 1,200 page website with only 200 good pages and 1,000 error pages. Not very trust worthy... We never had a 404 ever before this, as we added a plugin to wordpress that would 301 any 404 to the homepage, so we never had a broken link on our site, which is not ideal for UX, but as far as google was concerned, our site was always clean. Obviously I have submitted a new sitemap to GWT a few weeks ago, and we are moving in the right direction... **but have I taken care of everything I need to? I'm not sure. Our traffic is still around 100 visitors per day, not 400 per day as it was before we launched the new site.**Thoughts?I'm not totally freaking out or anything, but a month ago we ranked #1 and #2 for "marketing agency nj", now we aren't in the top 100. I've never had a problem like this. _I added a few screen grabs from Google Webmaster Tools that should be helpful.__Bottom line, have I done everything I need to or do I need to do something with all of these "not found" error details that I have in GWT?_None of these "not found" pages have any value and I'm not sure how Google even found them... For example: http://www.thedsmgroup.com/supersize-page-test/screen-shot-2012-11-06-at-2-33-22-pmHelp! -JasonuhLLtou&h4QmGCW#0 uhLLtou&h4QmGCW#1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Charlene-Wingfield0 -
Will I lose traffic from Google for re-directing a page?
I’m currently planning to a retire a discontinued product and put a 301 redirect to a related product (although not identical). The thing is, I’m still getting significant traffic from people searching for the old product by name. Would Google send this traffic to the new pages via the re-direct? Is Google likely to display the new page in place of the old page for similar queries or will it serve other content? I’d like to answer this question so that I can decide between the two following approaches: 1) Retiring the old page immediately and putting a 301 redirect to the new related pages. This will have the advantage of transferring the value of any link signals / referring traffic. Traffic will also land on the new pages directly without having to click through from another page. We would have a dynamic message telling users that the old product had been retired depending on whether they had visited out site before. 2) Keep the old product pages temporarily so that we don’t lose the traffic from the search engines. We would then change the old pages to advise users that the old product was now retired, but that we have other products that might solve their problems. When this organic traffic decreases over time, then we will proceed with the re-direct as above. I am worried though that the old product pages might outrank the new product pages. I’d really appreciate some advice with this. I’ve been reading lots of articles, but it seems like there are different opinions on this. I understand that I will lose between 10% - 15% of page rank as per the Matt Cutts video.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
How do I get the best from our Blog and build quality links and drive traffic to our site?
We have recently setup a Wordpress focused blog (blog.towelsrus.co.uk) which is very much work in progress. Because of financial constraints we had to host this on a separate sub domain. I need to get to grips with blogs is new to me (only been doing SEO this for 3 months now) and have have read may posts on the forums here that this is one of the best ways to build links and engage the audience. How do I go about getting people to read my blog, and should I use this to pull in traffic on keywords we cannot through the main site or should i use this to re-enforce and build traction on those keywords we are trying to rank for on the main site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
Any resources for targeting sites towards long-tail keywords or broad match traffic?
I've been looking around, but haven't had much luck finding info or case-studies on targeting long-tail keywords or broad match traffic. So, for example, trying to target a site about used toyotas. (Not my term, but provides a decent example) Theres more motivated traffic searching "2002 Toyota Camry" than "Used Toyotas". While Used Toyotas make more sense for a site theme from a visitor perspective, I would rather have an article on my site rank for the easier keyword of say Blue 2002 Toyota Camry. I make more money from long tail keywords than Used Toyotas. Any thoughts or references about increasing those rankings would be appreciated. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MeanGiant0 -
How to best utilize network of 50 sites to increase traffic on main site
Hey All, First off I wanna thank everyone who has responded to all my previous questions! Love to see a community that is so willing to help those who are learning the ropes! Anyways back to my point. We have a main site that is a PR 3 and our main focal point for lead generation. We recently acquired 50 additional sites (all with a PR of 1-3) that we would like to use as our own little back linking campaign with. All the domains are completely relevant to our main site as well as specific pages within our main site. I know that reciprocal links will get me no where and that google is quickly on to the attempted 3 way link exchange. My question is how do I best link these 50 sites to not only maintain there own integrity and PR but also assist our main site. Thanks All!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deuce1s0
