Bots on the Internet: friend or enemy? This is how you protect yourself!

Bots on the Internet: friend or enemy? This is how you protect yourself!

Gera, Deutschland - In the digital age, the management of internet traffic is becoming increasingly complicated, especially because of the unbroken presence of bots. This brings both challenges and opportunities for website operators and users. A young colleague from a local news magazine recently dealt with this topic. Today, on June 30, 2025, we report on the core issues that arise around the crawler bot traffic on websites and the necessary measures for handling.

like the reporting of News Corp Australia , a large part of the internet traffic is generated by so-called crawler bot traffic. These are automated scripts that act online and collect information about websites. These bots are both useful and harmful. Shable bots can be used for identity theft and other criminal activities, while useful bots such as Googlebot and Bingbot are irreplaceable for search engine optimization.

bots on the Internet: advantages and challenges

statistics show that bots now make up almost half of all internet activities. Particularly interesting: Around 32 percent of these bots are considered to be harmful, while the rest fulfills useful tasks, such as the categorization of content for search engines. According to Human Security it is essential to find a balance to block undesirable bots without hindering the useful.

The rapid growth of the bot technologies is underlined by finding the Pew Research Centers in 2020 already generated in 2020. According to younger estimates, this number could have increased to an impressive 50 percent by 2023.

But how do you deal with abusive bot traffic? It is recommended to check your own security settings regularly and take certain measures. This includes deactivating ad blockers or adding the website to the permitted list in such programs. Furthermore, affected users should contact the website's support directly if the problems persistent; For News Corp, for example at the email address accessissues@news.com.au with corresponding details about your IP address.

The future of digital traffic

The expert: Inside: good management of the bots can be crucial for the success of a website. The use of mechanisms such as the Robots.txt file to control access is only one of many best practices. There are also special solutions that help to distinguish useful from harmful bots and to optimize the handling of traffic.