Frequently Asked Questions
General and compatibility questions
I have a web shop. But, I am not sure if I need your services. How can I check this?
In recent years, bad bot traffic has grown so much that virtually any eCommerce website can benefit from using some kind of traffic management tool. You can easily perform a rapid scan of your website to check its current protection. This very simple scanner emulates access to your website with fake search engines, popular commercial bots, and browser emulators. This rapid test takes less than 1 minute.
What if you block some necessary bots by mistake?
We have developed a special method to avoid false positives. BotGuard lets you start monitoring your automated traffic in “no blocking” mode. The website admin will be advised by our AI Advisor to enable blocking rules one by one based on your traffic. The BotGuard dashboard lets you maintain and fine tune custom blocking rules. If any identified threat requires your attention, you will be notified by email.
Does BotGuard have an impact on the search engines website indexing?
No. Search engines like Google, Bing, Yandex and others can access your website as usual.
Do you protect a website against DDoS attacks?
No, BotGuard doesn't provide a service against Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. Typically, such an attack is targeted against the network infrastructure in an attempt to overload its resources. However, if protection against volumetric-DDoS attacks is provided, BotGuard will be a great addition. BotGuard can resist Denial-of-Service attacks at the application level (L7), blocking the bots' access to the web application.
I already use anti-DDoS protection. Do I still need your service?
Yes, this is our basic recommendation. It's important to note that we do not provide anti-DDoS protection. We integrate at the web server level to manage bot traffic (scrapers, content theft, competitive monitoring, hacker attacks, etc.). The most sensible approach is to combine the two. Some of our partners combine Cloudflare for DDoS protection with our service for bot management. Our system is based on digital fingerprinting and can be fine-tuned to the needs of a particular website.
I use a WAF with custom rules, can I still use your service for anti-bot protection?
Yes, you can combine your existing WAF with our bot management service, and abstain from using our WAF all together. We already have users who do this.
Do you provide web app vulnerabilities scanning?
No, our service analyzes your traffic, identifies the visitor, and helps your server correctly process the request in accordance with your own settings. We do not monitor your website security.
What about human visitor's privacy? Where do you store the traffic data?
The short answer is we don't. We process the content of a website visitor's request, however we do not store this data. We process it dynamically, and we do not use digital identifiers such as cookies or fingerprints, in order to attribute requests to the unique user.
Do you have a demo?
Yes, we have a demo website at demo.botguard.net. The demo website is protected with the BotGuard Cloud Website Protection service.
You are welcome to try emulating any bot or human traffic to demo site and check whether the bots are blocked by BotGuard's service.
Which languages does the BotGuard dashboard provide?
We currently provide an interface in English. The appropriate localized version is set up automatically according to the OS/browser language. We have a number of localized versions currently under development.
Do you use captcha?
BotGuard does not use captcha by default. Normally, neither user action like captcha or additional input is required. However, you can configure the blocking policy so that captcha is used in doubtful cases. For most of your website users, nothing will change with their service.
Does using BotGuard increase website response time?
Yes, the website response time can increase slightly due to the website visitor filtering. Fortunately, it's not more than a few milliseconds. BotGuard servers are located close by to ensure high speed and minimal network latency.
I can't login to my site control panel, I'm blocked!
BotGuard blocks access to the website admin pages for security reasons. You can create a special Custom rule based on your IP address, or allow access to these pages from any address.
To add a special custom rule, open the Rules Editor page and create a new rule based on your IP-address.
To allow access to everyone, create a rule (or a set of rules) allowing access to specific pages. For example, if the admin pages URL starts with http://example.com/admin/, then you can add a regex ^\/admin\/ to the rule to allow access to all of these pages.
Technical issues
I have a WordPress website on an Apache web server. Which integration method would you recommend?
We recommend integration at the web server level, as in this case the recognition quality is higher. In the event that this is not possible, you can integrate at the CMS (Content Management System) level with our WordPress plug-in.
Can I use API connectors to integrate with BotGuard?
Yes, we provide an API for our partners to manage websites on their account. Typically we use this API in hosting panel integration modules. The documentation is available at SwaggerHub.
I have several websites in my account. Is it possible to see bot activity by website?
Yes! You can easily use the filter located above the log grid to filter the results you want to see.
I would like to be able to click on "Blocked Bots" to see more detail.
You can do this by clicking on the link "Add/Edit the rule".
Partner program
I would like to be your partner. Which locations are of interest to you?
We enter into partnerships all around the world. Please contact us directly to find out more!
I would like to be your partner. Do you provide any hosting panel modules like cPanel or DirectAdmin?
Yes, we provide modules for DirectAdmin, WHM / cPanel, Plesk and ISPmanager. Please visit Hosting panels page for more details. Or contact us directly if you did not find your panel in the list.
Is your client dashboard available white labeled?
It is possible, but will be subject to a special agreement. Please contact us directly to learn more.
How do I monitor the number of requests from my end-customers?
You will always have access to the number of visitor requests directly on your dashboard. Please keep in mind that the website statistics are updated after every thousand requests in order to improve system performance, so if the site traffic is low, this may take some time.