What is Bot Detection?
Bot Detection is an add-on that automatically identifies bot traffic (crawlers, scrapers, spam bots) and lets you either flag them or block them entirely.
Why use Bot Detection?
- Cleaner data: Bots distort metrics (bounce rate, session duration, etc.).
- Better optimization: Campaigns optimized without bot traffic have a better ROAS.
- Cost savings: You don't pay for processing bot requests.
- Security: Blocking malicious bots (scrapers, DDoS).
How to activate
- Go to Dashboard → Add-ons
- Turn on the "Bot Detection" toggle
- Select the mode:
Bot Detection modes
1. Headers Only (recommended)
Flags bot requests by adding a X-DataNostro-Bot-Detected: true header, but still sends data to GA4/Meta/etc. The analytics platforms can filter bots on their side.
2. Block Requests
Blocks bot requests entirely — data is NOT sent to GA4/Meta/etc. Use carefully, it may block legitimate crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot).
What gets detected?
- Known bots: Googlebot, Bingbot, facebookexternalhit, Twitter bot, LinkedIn bot
- Scrapers: Ahrefsbot, SEMrushBot, DotBot, MJ12bot
- Spam bots: SemrushBot, AhrefsBot, MauiBot, DotBot
- Headless browsers: PhantomJS, HeadlessChrome, Puppeteer
- IP reputation: Known datacenter IPs, proxies, VPNs
Advanced settings
- Block Collect Endpoint: Blocks bots on the
/collectendpoint. - Prevent Web GTM Load: Doesn't send the GTM.js script to bots → saves bandwidth.
- Bot Detection Threshold: Detection sensitivity (0.0 - 1.0, recommended 0.7).
Whitelist of legitimate bots
Important crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot) are whitelisted by default. Custom whitelisting is available in advanced settings.
💡 Recommendation:
Use Headers Only mode for the first 7-14 days and watch the dashboard statistics. If bot traffic is < 5%, you can turn on Block Requests.