How to look for bots in Webvisor
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Webvisor can record a visit that Metrica or Direct has already classed as a robot. The player does not stamp “this is a bot”. Looking for a bot here means reading the marks on the recording and refusing to treat them as the bill.
How a frightening session is separated from a paid click is covered in signs of click fraud. The names of programs that introduced themselves are not in the player. The order of that report is in how to find bots in Metrica.
A recording does not say whether money was charged
The Webvisor guide says outright that it can record visits Metrica or Direct class as robots. The recording is still a recording of what was on the screen. Which of the two systems applied the label, and whether the click stayed in spend, is not written on the player.
A session that is missing from the Direct-group reports did not enter spend. How to compare repeats and second-long visits with those reports is in the signs article. The comparison is not repeated here: otherwise the player starts being read as a cash register again.
The idle mark is a pause
On a stretch where the visitor did not interact with the site, the player shows an idle mark and the length of that pause. The intensity of interaction is on a graph. Separate marks rewind the recording to a goal, to the on-screen keyboard, and to a click on a link.
A pause is the absence of actions on that stretch, not a verdict. A living person goes to make tea. A program may move the page with no pauses at all. How a program differs from a person, and why there is no single sign, is covered in bot or human. The mark does not replace that article.
No goal mark on the recording is not yet a broken lead. Zero leads next to clicks are checked separately. The order is in clicks without leads.
A hole in the recording is often an iframe, not a hidden bot
Webvisor records the content the visitor saw, including what was assembled on the page during the view. Someone else’s content — a chat, recommendations, an ad unit — enters the recording when it is not shown in an iframe. A block inside an iframe does not appear.
An empty spot where the live site had an ad does not prove that a bot hid the ad. It is a limit of the player. Before you read the hole as an attack, check whether the block sits in a frame.
Asterisks in fields are not a bot’s mask either. Metrica itself closes fields it treats as confidential, a name for example. If you turn off “Record all fields”, asterisks cover everything. A password is not written even with the class that allows recording. This is the privacy setting described in connecting Webvisor.
The phone outline on a recording distinguishes Android from iOS by the shape of the device, so you do not have to read the technical line. It is not a kind of bot. Which purposes the guides actually name as kinds is collected in kinds of bots.
When there are no recordings
Webvisor turns off if the recordings have not been watched for six months. Then there is nothing to watch, and “there were no bots” does not follow from an empty list. Turning it on is Settings → Counter, the option “Webvisor, scroll map, form analytics”, the Webvisor tab set to On, then the updated counter code on every page. Until the code is updated, the player does not promise the recording you are looking for.
Six months is a period from the guide, not a norm for how often bots must be caught. It is the condition under which the archive stops.
If recordings exist, open one from the day the Robots report already showed a spike. Do not look for a name in the player: the name of a program that introduced itself sits in that report. In the recording, look at three things in order. A long idle mark is a pause. A missing block is an iframe until shown otherwise. Asterisks in a form are closed fields. None of the three answers whether the click was charged. That answer is still outside the player.
The line of a paid click does not move because of this player. It is set in what ad click fraud is: you pay for what stayed in spend. A recording of a robot Direct has already removed does not return the money a second time, and it does not prove the money was charged.
A check of the visit on the site does not replace the player. It looks at behavior, the browser environment, the network and the ad-click parameters at the moment the page opens. The decision is to let the visit through, to give the browser a short task, or to keep it out. If the check does not answer, the visit is let through. Binetro does not put an idle mark on a recording, and it does not subtract a Webvisor session from spend.
What not to read as a bot:
The idle mark and a long stretch on the graph are a pause, not a label.
An empty ad unit: check the iframe before calling it an attack.
Asterisks in a form are closed fields, not a bot’s hidden name.
The phone outline is the device type, not a kind of program.
The fact of the recording itself, including a visit Metrica or Direct has already classed as a robot. Spend is read outside the player.