Third-Party Bot Traffic Does Not Directly Impact Your Google Rankings

Apr 5, 2021 - 7:41 am 0 by

Google Bad Bot

A webmaster asked on Twitter if having "a lot of bot traffic coming in" and if that bot traffic is "tagged under organic traffic, will this have an adverse any effect or does google ignore this." The answer is no, John Mueller of Google said "That has no effect on Google Search."

Here are those tweets:

Now there are many ways to break down what this person may be asking. It seems the concern he has is around having Google Analytics data that shows a lot of fake organic traffic is coming to the site. Maybe that traffic doesn't end up converting or engaging with the site? Either way, John is saying that their (1) Google does not use Google Analytics data for ranking, which he said hundreds of times in the past and/or (2) having bots go to your site does not impact Google.

I mean, if those bots are slowing down the performance of your site, that may impact how Google crawls your site, but that is a far-reaching example.

The follow up question went a bit more far off:

Anyway, just focus on your content and your site. Don't get bogged down in these types of issues for rankings.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: Another one on this:

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: January 29, 2026

Jan 29, 2026 - 10:00 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Poll: 33% Will Block Google AI Search Experience: AI Mode & AI Overviews

Jan 29, 2026 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Tests 10 Sitelinks On Some Search Result Snippets

Jan 29, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Advertiser Verification Page Moving

Jan 29, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Personal Intelligence Creates AI Frankenstein Recipes

Jan 29, 2026 - 7:21 am
Google Ads

Google Ads API Version 23 Now Available

Jan 29, 2026 - 7:11 am
 
Previous Story: Fake COVID Vaccine Ads Hit Google