Technical Masterclass: Real visitors, real numbers: how to spot and filter bot traffic in Matomo

Your traffic just jumped. Should you celebrate?

Maybe not. Behind that spike, there could be bots.

Bot and spam traffic slips quietly into your reports. It inflates your visits and actions, skews your KPIs, muddles your period comparisons and geographic reports, creates paths no real visitor would take, and eats into your action quota for nothing.

The real cost? You start doubting the numbers you rely on to decide.

But here’s the catch: one odd signal doesn’t prove it’s a bot. Block too fast and you lose real visitors. Wait too long and the noise keeps growing. The answer is knowing which clues to connect, and when to confirm them with your logs, CDN, firewall (WAF) or server.

That’s exactly what this live session is about. Jean-Marc Courtiade from our Customer Experience team shares the method he uses, then takes you through a real, anonymised investigation, from first suspicion to cleaner reports.

What you’ll take away

• Know what to look for: unusual spikes or breaks in traffic, unexpected countries, regions or network providers, suspicious sources, browsers or user agents, strange action volumes and timings, repetitive or inconsistent paths
• Think like an investigator: connect several signals before you draw conclusions
• Measure the problem: isolate suspicious traffic in Matomo with segments and period comparisons
• Pick the right protection: Matomo’s native bot detection and spam prevention options, targeted exclusions, and extra protection at CDN, WAF or server level
• Stay in control: track the effect over time, avoid over-blocking and keep the option to roll back

Got a mystery spike of your own? Bring it along. Your host, Alex, runs a live Q&A with Jean-Marc at the end.