What is bot traffic? How does it affect podcasts?
Bot traffic is any non-human traffic to a website.
These are automated software programs that visit websites, download audio files, etc... Some of them are good (for example, assistants like Siri and Alexa need bots for their queries) and some of them are bad (spambots from Russia or China).
In either case, podcast hosting platforms (like Transistor, Libsyn, etc...) are continually trying to identify and remove bot traffic.
At Transistor, we're continuously re-analyzing analytics to remove bots and improve accuracy.
When we remove bot traffic, you may see your podcast analytics readjust, like this:
Here's a recent Reddit thread on the topic.
These are automated software programs that visit websites, download audio files, etc... Some of them are good (for example, assistants like Siri and Alexa need bots for their queries) and some of them are bad (spambots from Russia or China).
In either case, podcast hosting platforms (like Transistor, Libsyn, etc...) are continually trying to identify and remove bot traffic.
At Transistor, we're continuously re-analyzing analytics to remove bots and improve accuracy.
When we remove bot traffic, you may see your podcast analytics readjust, like this:
Here's a recent Reddit thread on the topic.
Updated on: 23/02/2021
Thank you!