Contacts Created by Bots

Hello

I’m looking at the issue that hundreds of contacts are created that contain only of an IP address.
I deleted them via a campaign and changed the .htaccess file in order to prevent the creation of the contacts right away.
I have noticed that the contacts are not only created when the user submits a form, but simply by visiting a webpage.
How can I omit this behavior?

Kind regards

Christian

Hi Christian,
Keeping track of anonymous visitors is absolutely intended. This way you can work with them intelligently (plus have additional insights once they are converted to known leads).

But yes, the bots is what nobody wants… two things there:
a) Turn on “Do Not Track 404 error for anonymous contacts” (Configuration → Tracking Settings)
b) Create a simple housekeeping campaign that removes 1-hit contacts after a day or so

Cheers
Ekke


Ekke Guembel

Mautic Open Source Project, Team Lead "Community"
Mail: ekke.guembel@mautic.org
Phone: +49 511 6262 9311
Profile & Social Media: Ekkehard Gümbel | Leuchtfeuer.com
Mautic Podcast: mauticast.de (DE) / mauticast.com (EN)

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Many thanks for your response and the advice with the Tracking Settings. The housekeeping campaign I had already and it works very well.
The question is, how can I turn an IP address into a contact?
And how is a contact created from a visitor, that does not interact with my web page apart from browsing through pages, but not filling out any form?

Cheers
Christian

Technically, here’s not really a distinction between what we like to call “known contacts” (those where email exists) and “anonymous visitors”.
And there can of course be e.g. contacts that have name and address but no email.
It all depends upon data being added to the contact, e.g. through forms or via API (or CSV or other) from CRM, eCommerce,…

@ekke Would you mind sharing the process for cleaning out bot contacts ie the segment settings?
M.

That’s part 2 of this article:

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@ekke Thanks. I have actually enhanced this slightly by adding in 2 further filters.
Hope this helps others.
M