Lots of bot hits from Google Search since July 25

[endam77]

Anyone experiencing the same? I noticed a huge Google search bump in Matomo since July 25, 2026, but it looks like scraper bot visits, not human visitors.

After checking, it seems like the extra visits are all single page visits to various pages, with Google search as the source, with a Linux & Chrome setup, from diferent US IPs.

I wonder if this could be a new Google spider that Matomo doesn’t recognize?
Although my guess is a third-party scraper rather, that’s using Google search results as the source for some reason.

[melbao]

@endam77

Anyone experiencing the same?

Yes, here. The name of this bots is: non-recognizable Bots. This are Bad Bots.

Matomo Tracking Bot Filter (PHP)

I have collect few rules to detect few of non-detectable bots with PHP. The rules using the User Agent and the Headers. It is not for everyone. It is specially for coder.

TrackingSpamPrevention - block ISP / ASN by name

Hello, in my bot blocking experiences I see a option in the TrackingSpamPrevention, that is better than IP or CIDR blocking. The Matomo PlugIn “TrackingSpamPrevention” has an option to block ISP via the DP IP to ASN database in the GeoIP settings. activate GeoIP go to matomo Settings → System → Geolocation Location provider DBIP / GeoIP 2 (Php) - activate ↓ Setup automatic updates of geolocation databases ISP Database https://download.db-ip.com/free/dbip-asn-lite-2026-07.mmdb…

[MaghSamana]

Same problem, swarms of bad bot scrapers. All list Google as origin, hit a page, leave - every two minutes. They cause huge delays in performance.

Almost always they come from data centers. I blocked whole ranges of those centrers. Then I noticed the same with residential IPs, used and rotated.

[michaeldsnyder5 (Michael D. Snyder)]

Yes, I’ve noticed similar patterns with sudden spikes in Google-referred traffic.The fact that most visits are single-page sessions from different US IPs and Linux/Chrome user agents makes it look more like automated or scraper traffic than genuine users. I’d check the user-agent strings, request frequency, and server logs to see whether the behavior matches a known Googlebot. It could also be a third-party scraper using Google search results as the referral source rather than an actual Google crawler.

[Ethonbrook0707 (Ethon brook)]

I’ve noticed something similar recently. Before assuming it’s genuine Google Search traffic, I’d compare the user agents, IP ranges, session duration, and engagement metrics. If most visits are single-page sessions with almost no interaction, it does sound more like unrecognized bots or scrapers than real users. It will be interesting to see whether this is a temporary pattern or something Matomo can identify automatically in a future update.

[melbao]

@Ethonbrook0707

It will be interesting to see whether this is a temporary pattern or something Matomo can identify automatically in a future update.

That is not a part of Matomo, because its required individuall solutions. Not everey Matomo User will block this bad bots, because there is no solution to block 100 % bad bots and 0 % humans.The default must also be setted at: block 0 % humans. But the consequence of this is, that bad bots are not blocked.

The Bad Bots are also crawler. Most of this crawling content for AI LLM.

@michaeldsnyder5

I’d check the user-agent strings, request frequency, and server logs

That’s the right behavior. Create your individuall Bad Bot blocker with this informations.

The peoples with insight in this Bad Bot behavior don’t only block the tracking, but block the traffic of the bad bots.