Views, Visits and bots.

[SillyBeansSheffield]

Ive been botted again 2nd time in two weeks. My question is should I report this to Etsy? I didn't the first time as I was confused at first, but its really messing with checking on my stats, not to mention conversion rate which we all know is key for being seen! Don't get me wrong this isn't my living, this is how I take the kids out for ice-cream etc, but for some of you guys it must be your main income, I mean is there anything etsy can do to stop it or correct it or will they just go 'oh thats a shame'  because its out of their hands. 

Has anyone reported it before? did you get any joy?

And also Gaarrrgghhhhggg *frustration scream*

[TheWestcountryWitch]

What do you mean botted? Google bots will check over your items because etsy appears in google, meaning people can search and find your items. Am confused about what the issue is, could you explain for me?

[anythinggoeshere]

Are you sure those weren't cicadas, not bots?  I love the term "botted".  I have never heard that before.

[NanaLetha]

Botted? 

[Marmalady]

@TheWestcountryWitch 

A bot attack is very different from the Google bots scraping your shop to show you in their search results

If a bot has attacked your shop, you will get thousands of views in a very short time. Some shops have reported as many as 20.000 views more than normal in only a few hours

When Etsy spots a bot attack ( and they do seem to have been targetted more than usual over the last 2-3 weeks) they do have tools to strip out most of these views -- but they do not always remove all of them so your stats can be somewhat distorted

To the OP, I presume Etsy will be aware of the latest attack -- and I am not sure how / where to report it anyway.

[Former_Member]

I had 38k view in a few hours this morning. I usually have 100 views a day. its happened to me a few times in the past 2 weeks and has killed my conversaion rate. 60k views in 30 days....i wish!

[AAANativeArts]

It's natural for bots to visit your pages. That is how you get in the search engines. Etsy should be excluding bot visits from their stats automatically. Some bots do visit excessively, like the Russian search engines, but since there are Russian sellers on Etsy, that would be normal, too, and Etsy should be excluding them from your stats. What particular bot are you referring to?

[SillyBeansSheffield]

so I normally get between 3 to 8 views a day, maybe 15 on a good day, two weeks ago I had over 900, that figure was reduced to 640 the next day, but still was accounted for in my stats today I'm looking at 65, not as much as 20,000 but enough to mess with my tiny stats. I dunno I'm probably whittling over nothing. I also probably made up the term botted

I make two or so sales a week, so not mega bucks but was enough to leave me a nice 4.5% ish conversion but these bots are leaving me just over 1% I dunno again my tiny mind is probably working over time... and it cheesed me off today so was having a rant. I get the bots have to check for google etc, but the quantities by comparison to my normal are ridiculous.

And yes I'm probably also cheesed off their not real people looking - sob!

thanks for replies all

[2HandmadeForMe]

Its a known problem. Been happening since January 2021 at least. Its been reported here in the forums by US, UK and Australian shops that I'm aware of. Possibly other places too. Etsy aren't stripping them from the stats so its massively distorting the amount of traffic you bring to your site vs Etsy performance and your conversion rate as a result. I haven't found any formal response from Etsy to date; not even a 'we know'. 

[FeltFunky]

Same here, twice in two weeks, and last time my visits only reduced to 296 by the end of the day. I 've only been getting about 10 visits a day recently, so yes, plays havoc with my conversion rate!

[maraeilis]

Yes it happened to me last week. I usually had 5-10 visits a day. Then one day all the sudden over 200 and by the end of the day it went down to 100 visits. 

Also recently I found that on some other days the Etsy stats don't match the Google analytics stats well, for example Etsy shows 23 visits but Google analytics only shows 6.  But not sure if that's also bots, could be other reasons. The 100+ visits in a day certainly were bots though.

[NorthRustic]

No they were not bots

[NorthRustic]

There is not a way for you to know if bots have been through your shop...

[Marmalady]

So how do you account for several thousand views in a few hours when your "normal" view rate is less than 50 a day?

Even Etsy calls these views "bot views" and removes as many as possible from your stats 

[RustleupanAntique]

I usually get 5-10 views a day, but as of today it's gone up to 1,200 - which is an increase of 8,846% (courtesy of the bots), and it's still going up every time I refresh the page.

The same thing happened last week. My conversion rate has gone down from 5% to 0.8% which I'm quite annoyed with, because I'm a student and right now it's the summer term (which means it's a long stretch until my next maintenance loan) so any money I make off Etsy goes towards my next meal/or bills.

Since the first bot attack (1,500 views in a day) my listings now appear lower in search results. I've messaged Etsy support to make sure all of the bogus views are removed, but it's annoying that 100 or so views are still going to slip through the net.

[SillyBeansSheffield]

Let us know if you get any joy from Etsy, if they are able to do anything, stop them etc. be interesting to see what their response is. its defo messed with my (tiny) views

[SurreyCroft]

I am having the same problem and I wonder if it is connected to Etsy ads - this has happened to my twice now - I will get 300 views on one item in an hour and now I realise it is the same item as last time and happened quickly after I added this item to my etsy add list of items - so should i report this to Etsy?

[Tonghaofabric]

Does bott mean to report? Forgive me for not understanding it. Maybe you can ask Etsy if they can stop it, maybe it can

[MaguiresWoodworks]

Happening to me too, 4-5 visits per day then randomly a day of 200 visits and the same again 2 weeks later. To the uninitiated a bot is essentially just an automated program - in this case, one which visits your store and records a copy of your price, image, copy and likely other stats. In this case they're not harmful ie they're not a virus but they muck around with your stats and as others have said, potentially the Etsy algorithm. Lately there's been a large increase in 'businesses' who find a listing (not just on Etsy), then just copy the pictures, set up a website and sell that product to an unsuspecting buyer.  Of course they never ship anything and take the cash. When they get reported they just shut up shop and start again the next day. I would have thought that as these visits would all likely come from 1 IP address that Etsy would be able to remove them but I haven't bothered to ask as it doesn't seem likely that it would warrant a response. 

[DonnaMarieAntiques]

I got 224 views in one hour and Etsy search results says it came from "us. search . yahoo .com"

I googled what is "US. search. yahoo . com" and the description wasn't all good news

[TwoSeasArts]

This is still happening. Happened to me twice this week. Over 1000 views in one hour. Similar views the second time. Ha anyone found a solution with Etsy yet?  

[LeatherCraftSo]

I have the same problem and I reported it several times the support team is not much helpful. These kinds of attacks are killing my conversion rate !!! They say that they have some kind of separating program that blocks them but it is shown in the status section. As a seller I want them to take care of this issue. Because this is where I earn my main income and livelihood. I'm calling out to everyone who encountered this problem, let's report this problem again and fix your conversion rate.