Traffic filtering and bots
Traffic filtering keeps unwanted visits out of your campaigns, widgets and reports. Personizely ignores known bots and crawlers automatically. On top of that, you can include or exclude traffic by country, IP address or IP range, and block visitors whose IP address is listed on public abuse blocklists. Filtered visitors see your original site, without campaigns or widgets, and aren't counted.
How it works
- Built-in bot detection runs on every page. Visits from known bots and crawlers, such as search engine crawlers and monitoring tools, are recognized automatically. Personizely doesn't run for them: they see your original site and aren't recorded. This is always on.
- Your filtering rules are checked when a visitor is recorded. If the visitor matches an exclude rule, doesn't match any include rule, or reaches your abuse blocklist threshold, Personizely stops for that visitor.
- Filtered visitors see your original site. No campaign variations, no widgets, and any content hidden to prevent flicker is shown as normal.
- Filtered visitors aren't counted. They don't appear in reports, in the Dashboard or in your visitor count, and their orders aren't attributed.
Settings
All in Settings → Security:
Setting | What it does | Values / default |
|---|---|---|
Include traffic from | Only visitors matching at least one of these rules are tracked | Countries, IP addresses, IP ranges (CIDR). Empty (default) allows all traffic |
Exclude traffic from | Visitors matching any of these rules are filtered out | Countries, IP addresses, IP ranges (CIDR). Empty by default |
Bot & abuser filtering | Filters out visitors whose IP address appears on at least this many of 154 independent abuse blocklists | 1–154. Empty (default) turns it off. Recommended: 5 |
Adding rules
In either rule field, start typing:
- a country name or two-letter code (Germany, DE) and pick it from the list;
- an IP address (203.0.113.7 or an IPv6 address) and choose Add as IP address;
- an IP range in CIDR notation (203.0.113.0/24) and choose Add as IP range.
Rules are shown as tags. Remove one with its ×.
How the rules combine
- Exclude wins. A visitor who matches an exclude rule is filtered out even if they also match an include rule.
- Include is a whitelist. As soon as one include rule exists, every visitor who matches none of them is filtered out.
- The blocklist check is separate. A visitor who reaches the Bot & abuser filtering threshold is filtered out regardless of include rules.
Choosing a blocklist threshold
The threshold is how many independent blocklists must list an IP address before it's filtered. A lower number filters more aggressively and risks blocking real shoppers on shared or recycled IP addresses, such as mobile carriers and some VPNs. A higher number filters only addresses with a strong abuse record. Start with 5, and lower it only if reports still show obvious junk traffic.
Behavior details and limitations
- Filtering applies from when you save. Past data isn't removed or recalculated. To look at past data without certain traffic, use Report filters, outliers and resetting stats.
- Countries come from the IP address. The detected country can differ from where the person actually is, for example on corporate networks that route traffic through another country.
- IP rules match the visitor's public IP address. Everyone in an office shares one public address, so excluding it excludes the whole office. Dynamic home connections can change address. Use a range if your provider gives you one.
- Filtered visitors don't get variations. A visitor who is filtered out mid-test, for example after you add their country to the exclude list, sees the original site from then on.
- SEO. Search engine crawlers are recognized as bots, so they index your original content, not test variations.
- Not a security firewall. Traffic filtering controls what Personizely runs and records. It doesn't block anyone from visiting your store.
- Excluding your team from tests. Add your office IP to Exclude traffic from so internal visits don't skew results. For one-off checks, open your store with ?ply_disable=1 to load it without Personizely. See Preview and QA campaigns.
- Pausing everything. To stop all tracking, campaigns and widgets for the website, use Settings → Tracking → Pause tracking instead. See Plans, visitor quota and pausing.
Examples
- Exclude your team and agency: Exclude traffic from your office IP 198.51.100.24 and your agency's range 203.0.113.0/24.
- Only the markets you sell to: Include traffic from United States, Canada and United Kingdom. Visitors from anywhere else see the original site and don't count against your tests or visitor quota.
- Cut junk traffic: set Bot & abuser filtering to 5 when reports show bursts of visitors with no engagement from data-center locations.
Troubleshooting
- A campaign or widget doesn't show for you → your IP or country is excluded, or isn't in the include list. Check Settings → Security, or test from another network.
- Visitor numbers dropped after adding an include rule → expected: every country or IP not listed is now filtered out. Check the list covers all your markets.
- Reports still show suspicious traffic → filtering isn't retroactive. Compare the period after you saved the settings, or lower the blocklist threshold gradually.