The Shocking Truth About Internet Spiders & Bots [Infographic]

Every website owner dreams of hitting it big. When traffic starts soaring, it’s a fulfilling feeling that sometimes feels like it can only get better. In most cases though, that is far from the bitter truth. When traffic starts picking up big time, maybe even within the scope of a few hours, it’s usually a sign that some of your published content has gone viral. Now a lot of new people have found their way to your website. But is that the truth? You are about to discover the shocking truth about website traffic.

We all try to increase our website traffic through SEO, social networking and most importantly of all, by writing relative and appealing content. We see traffic gradually go up and up, and it’s all exciting. But when you start looking at the website traffic data, there is something that is off balance. How could it be that you’re getting all that traffic and still there is so little engagement in the form of comments, shares or even people talking about your content? The reality is a lot different than what your Google Analytics account shows you, and it could possibly be quite a shocking truth to discover.

The fact of the matter is that if we say a website has 1,000 visitors a month, only 49% (on average) are real human people. What? Yes, that is entirely correct. The rest are bots and spiders pickpocketing your content, indexing it or even trying to collect data that they can use to make money from. It’s a shocking truth that could possibly bust a huge hole in every analytical effort. Suddenly we’re faced with a reality that tells us our effort’s return is cut in half.

What previously was an inspiring statistic has in an instant become a shocking truth that is hard to shake. Out of those 1,000 visitors, only 490 are real humans. How do you tackle that? Well, it’s the reality of today’s Internet. People try to make a profit by finding shortcuts, and they are not afraid to cheat and scam their way to a short time in luxury. It’s sad, and quite frankly, it’s an annoyance that is hard to patch up. There are ways to fix it, banning IPs being one of them, but it’s hard to identify all of the bots and spiders that are continuously raging your hard work for their own profit.

A fresh infographic from Rivalhost digs deeper into this and adds to the shocking truth about your website traffic statistics. The infographic is called How (Bad) Spiders And Bots Inflate Google Analytics, and even though it’s short, it presents relative information that is good for any website owner to know. The more successful your site is, the more you will be targeted by these Internet spiders and bots. Setting up counter measures is time consuming and sometimes complex, but you can never stop because that is when the shocking truth of Internet spiders and bots will become your ultimate nightmare reality.