Bot Detection and Management: Separating Good Bots from Bad

Bots now account for nearly 50% of all internet traffic in 2026. While some bots are essential for your business—like search engine crawlers—many are malicious, designed to scrape content, stuff credentials, or overwhelm your servers. Effective bot management is no longer optional.

In this guide, we'll explain how to identify and manage bot traffic, and how WafWay provides intelligent bot detection that protects your applications without blocking legitimate users.

Understanding Bot Traffic

Not all bots are created equal. Understanding the difference is crucial for effective bot management.

Types of Malicious Bot Attacks

1. Credential Stuffing

Bots test stolen username/password combinations from data breaches against your login pages. With billions of credentials available on the dark web, this is a massive threat.

• Automated login attempts at scale
• Distributed across thousands of IPs
• Can compromise thousands of accounts quickly

2. Web Scraping

Bots extract valuable content from your site:

• Product pricing and inventory
• Proprietary content and articles
• Contact information and directories
• Competitor intelligence gathering

3. Account Takeover (ATO)

Sophisticated bots that combine credential stuffing with account manipulation to take over user accounts for fraud.

4. Inventory Hoarding

Bots add items to shopping carts without purchasing, preventing legitimate customers from buying limited products.

5. Form Spam

Automated form submissions that fill your databases with junk data and can be used for SEO spam or phishing.

How WafWay Detects Bots

WafWay uses multiple techniques to identify and manage bot traffic:

User-Agent Analysis

WafWay maintains a comprehensive database of known bot user agents:

• Verified good bots (search engines, monitoring)
• Known bad bot signatures
• Suspicious user agent patterns
• User agent spoofing detection

Request Pattern Analysis

Bots exhibit different behavior than humans:

• Request frequency: Bots often make requests faster than humanly possible
• Navigation patterns: Bots don't browse like humans
• Resource requests: Real browsers load CSS, JS, images
• Session behavior: Bots often skip normal user journeys

Rate Limiting

WafWay applies intelligent rate limiting:

• Per-IP request limits
• Per-session limits
• Endpoint-specific limits (higher for APIs, lower for login)
• Adaptive limits based on behavior

IP Reputation

WafWay checks incoming requests against:

• Known bot network IPs
• Datacenter and hosting provider ranges
• TOR exit nodes and proxy services
• Previously flagged malicious IPs

Configuring Bot Protection in WafWay

WafWay offers flexible bot management options:

Allow Good Bots

Enable the allow_good_bots setting to automatically permit:

• Googlebot (verified by reverse DNS)
• Bingbot
• Monitoring services
• Feed readers

Rate Limiting Rules

Configure rate limits appropriate for your application:

• Global request limits per IP
• Specific endpoint protection
• Burst allowances for legitimate traffic

CAPTCHA Challenges

For suspicious traffic, WafWay can present challenges:

• JavaScript challenges (invisible to users)
• CAPTCHA for high-risk requests
• Custom challenge pages

Bot Management Best Practices

1. Don't Block All Bots

Blocking all bots hurts your SEO and breaks legitimate integrations. Use WafWay's intelligent detection to allow good bots.

2. Monitor Bot Traffic

Regularly review your bot traffic patterns:

• Which bots are visiting most frequently?
• Are there unusual spikes in traffic?
• Which endpoints are targeted?

3. Protect High-Value Endpoints

Apply stricter rules to sensitive areas:

• Login and authentication pages
• Checkout and payment flows
• API endpoints
• Account management pages

4. Use robots.txt Wisely

While good bots respect robots.txt, bad bots ignore it. Use it for guidance, not security.

Conclusion

Effective bot management is essential for modern web applications. You need to block malicious bots while allowing the good ones that drive traffic and enable integrations.

WafWay provides intelligent bot detection and management that protects your applications without impacting legitimate users. Visit www.wafway.com to learn how WafWay can help you manage bot traffic effectively.