How to handle invalid bot traffic in Google Analytics?

[thinkfast]

I see sometime in google analytics insight that number of actual visitors are less than total (I think use SPIKE word), means some bots are visiting to our sites.

So my question is can i see these types of bots or traffics which are not beneficial for us according to google that from where they are coming?

How can we avoid these types of bots or fake traffics?

[tangor]

Do you have access to your server logs? That's the first place to go for discovery. To stop the bots you will have to have access to .htaccess (or whatever is used for your server) for denies. Tracking by IPs and geo-locations can also be helpful in controlling the bad actors.

As for what g analytics displays is not likely as addressable as the above. Stop the bots at your site ... g will get the hint. :)

[thinkfast]

Yes, i have access of server logs and i can modify or edit .htaccess .... can you give me some hints that from htaccess how can stop bots (Not google). As i know and block folder or file to index in search engines bot not more ideas that how can i block bots to access my website to stop garbage traffics.

Actually due to these types of traffics i am unable to get that how much traffics we are getting because tracker show thousands but analytics show less. So i want to block these types of bots ... please guide if can do from htaccess.

[not2easy]

Blocking bots is a science. You can begin learning in our Search Engine Spider and User Agent Identification [webmasterworld.com] forum. Read, read, read. There is gold in that forum. ;)

The answer is not in a package, it is something you build for your site. If I handed you my rules, they might not help you at all. It is not a 5 minute fix and will take a good bit of time to begin. Once you get started it becomes easier and faster. You first begin by examining your raw access logs to understand how to tell the difference between a bot visit and a human visit. Bots can mimic human behavior so it isn't always easy to be certain in the beginning. Be prepared to spend days getting started, then hours fine tuning and once you have some control, it can be minutes per month.

[thinkfast]

Thanks @not2easy for details. I was thinking so that its not simple as i think but i was thinking that i can get some inbuild code to test by place them to htaccess but now i think its risky. So will try to read about this and test after implement at our site.

Thanks again.

[NickMNS]

I see sometime in google analytics...
How can we avoid these types of bots or fake traffics?

The key here is determining the type of fake traffic. You can't block referrer spam by blocking bots from accessing your server using .htaccess since this traffic doesn't actually touch your server it only sends requests to the Google Analytics endpoint. On the other hand, blocking referrer spam wont block actual bot traffic that is hitting your server.

To determine if the traffic is referrer spam or bots, check the hostname in GA for the suspect traffic, if the hostname reported is anything other than your own domain then it is referrer spam and can only be filtered out in GA. Otherwise it is likely bot traffic, then refer to your logs to find the offending IPs and UAs and follow the recommendations provided above.

To see the hostname go to "Aquisition" direct traffic, or even all traffic (some times the requests include fake referrers) select a secondary dimension, from the list pick "behaviour" and then "hostname".

[not2easy]

Thanks, NickMNS - Agreed, it is faster and easier to use the GA tools if the primary concern is accuracy within GA. Long term bot control as described above is a different thing. It would be more attractive to those not using GA.