Types of bot traffic
- Crawlers and link previews. Search engines and messengers fetching a page to index it or build a preview.
- Scanners and monitors. Security tools and checkers that request URLs automatically.
- Scrapers and scripts. Generic automation with a faked or default browser.
- Headless browsers. Real browser engines driven by software, harder to spot by user agent alone.
- Proxy and data-center traffic. Sometimes real people, but often worth a rule of its own.
Why it matters
If you pay per click, bot clicks are spend with no chance of converting. They also pull conversion rate and ROI down and add noise to a split test. Filtering them early keeps your numbers cleaner.
How TDS.SO detects bots
Each click passes four stages.
- Rules and lists. Your allow and block lists and known robots.
- Network checks. Signals from the connection, such as data-center and proxy addresses.
- Fingerprint and behaviour. About 40 signals from the browser and how it behaves.
- Ensemble verdict. The signals are combined into a score. From 0.5 the visitor gets a CAPTCHA; from 0.7 they count as a bot.
Filter levels run from 0 to 3, which lets you balance strictness against the risk of catching a real person. Each decision is recorded with its reason in the click log.
What happens to a bot
In the template you choose a bot action: send to a URL you set, show a landing page, or return an error code. Bot clicks are still recorded, so you can see how much of your traffic they make up. Compare the Humans and Bots segments over equal periods after each level change, and change one level at a time. More in traffic filtering and antibot.
Questions
Are all bots bad?
No. Search crawlers and messenger link previews are routine, but in most funnels they should not reach your offer.
Can a filter block real people?
Yes, any filter can misjudge. The levels and the CAPTCHA zone between "probably human" and "bot" limit that risk. Review the Bots segment after changing a level.
Does TDS.SO check domains for bans?
It checks domains against VK, Google, Yandex and fraud lists and notifies you. It does not switch domains automatically.