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An insight into how bot detection works

Detecting a bot is not a piece of cake - knowing that a false positive can lead to unhappy human visitor, who may leave your website.

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As you can see in attached diagrams, modern methods of Bot detection rely both on traces which can be found on site's access (HTTP/S) log file, and JavaScript-related features which can be checked only if client's browser does support JavaScript (lack of JavaScript is a strong indication that we're dealing with a bot).

JavaScript checks can go a long way, even detecting input / output devices and checking mouse / keyboard activity.

'Does IP belong to a Datacenter' - this check requires maintaining a database of such IPs - and usually obtained by external vendors.

If you're interested in using BotMeNot as a beta tester or want to find out more about this topic feel free to visit https://botmenot.com/

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