Surge / Spike in HubSpot Traffic after running HubSpot SEO Analysis Google Analytics GA4

[PJohns]

Hi,

We have a large spike in web traffic showing up in GA4 / Google Analytics and need to filter the bot out from view so we can reflect on the correct web stats for a period.

It appears to be the SEO bot from HubSpot that crawled out site for a couple of days.

Anyone had the same issue and any guidance on how we can filter it out, post visit? Whats the bot called etc...

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Paul

[theDMM]

Hi @Jnix284  and @PJohns we are having the same issue and this is the second time this has happened to our reports this year.

A traffic spike of about 1,000+ sessions occurred on our website today all within an hour or two after initiating the HubSpot SEO scan on our website - This tells me that the HubSpot SEO bot crawler is causing the issue.

Note, that the 'bot filtering' button/feature is turned on in our HubSpot account. I am also unsure if HubSpot uses a particular IP for the SEO bot/crawler so I have yet to add any IP filters in GA4.

Did you find a solution, such as an IP address or series to block this traffic from GA4 reports and furthermore Shopify reports?

[Jnix284]

@theDMM I haven't found a solution for removing the SEO Scan traffic from reporting, if you need a way to exclude it I recommend adding an idea that the product team can review for future updates. If you add the idea and share the link back here, we can all upvote to help it gain some traction.

[BérangèreL]

Hi @PJohns,

Thank you for asking the Community!

I'd like to share this article "Exclude traffic from your site analytics" that might help you, where in your settings, you can activate the "bot filtering" option.

If the behavior is still the same after adding this option, I would recommend connecting with HubSpot Technical Support, as Support is included in your subscription and they will be able to provide real-time assistance for this matter, including hopping on a screenshare if necessary.

I hope this helps!

Have a fantastic day!

Best,
Bérangère

[PJohns]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. We already have that bot filter switch enabled.

Its the spike in traffic viewing in Google GA4 we would like to filter out, not in HS analytics. We have tried using the standard GA4 view filters to exclude source / medium (http://hs-sites-eu1.origin.hubspot.net<>), but it hasn't made any difference to date.

A little frustrating.

Not sure if there is anything else you can suggest?

Thanks

[Jnix284 · Accepted solution]

Hi @PJohns have you tried filtering your traffic in GA4 to the specific date range of the SEO bot to try to isolate the sources?

I am not currently running a scan on a site that has GA4 connected to try to isolate it, perhaps @Sjardo has run into this before and can help further.