ThePingAddict
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- Joined
- Jan 12, 2025
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- 44
Good question — let's dig into it carefully.
Short answer: **Yes, a large percentage of "users" lurking on a XenForo forum — especially if you're looking at online user logs — are usually bots**.
Here’s why:
---
### 1. **How XenForo Logs "Users"**
- XenForo records *any session* that accesses the forum.
- If the session matches a real, authenticated user, it shows that username.
- If it’s just an unauthenticated visitor, it logs their IP/browser info as a guest.
- **Bots** that don’t declare themselves as bots (or even some that do) can appear *just like normal guest sessions*.
---
### 2. **How Bots Slip In**
- Many bots *don't* have a proper User-Agent identifying them as Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.
- Some deliberately fake regular browser user agents like Chrome, Firefox, Safari.
- So unless you have very aggressive bot detection (e.g., Cloudflare Bot Management, custom server rules, updated robots.txt), **XenForo will log them as if they were real visitors**.
---
### 3. **When You Really Notice It**
- If your forum is small or niche but you see dozens or hundreds of “guests” or “users online,” it's almost certain that **the majority are crawlers, bots, or automated scripts**.
- Particularly if they're hanging on odd pages (like /members/, /help/terms/, /login/).
---
### 4. **Signs the "Users" Are Actually Bots**
| Symptom | What It Suggests |
|:---|:---|
| High "Guest" count at weird hours (like 3 AM) | Bot traffic |
| Lots of sessions from strange user agents (e.g., outdated browsers, suspicious strings) | Scrapers or bots |
| Traffic mostly to less-important pages, not forums or threads | SEO bots, scrapers |
| IPs resolving to datacenters, not residential ISPs | Definitely bots |
| Very short session durations (a few seconds) | Bots checking pages quickly |
---
### 5. **Concrete Numbers**
From real-world experience:
- On a lightly-trafficked XenForo forum (let's say 20 real actives per day), you might have **500-2000 "guests" per day**, **95% of them bots**.
- Even very big forums (millions of posts) still have *majority bot traffic* in their guest logs unless filtered heavily.
---
### 6. **What You Can Do About It**
If you want cleaner stats:
- Use **robots.txt** to block unnecessary bots.
- Install **addons like [DBTech's Security](https://xenforo.com/community/resources/dbtech-dragonbyte-security.5469/)** to block known bad bots.
- Consider **Cloudflare** with Bot Management settings enabled.
- Log IPs and user-agents; match common bot fingerprints.
- Or just accept that *most “online users” will be bots* unless you hardcore restrict access.
---
**Summary:**
If you are looking at your XenForo session logs and wondering if most lurkers are bots: **yes, almost certainly.** Only a small percentage of lurkers are likely real humans, unless you're a very active community with strong authenticated user activity.
Short answer: **Yes, a large percentage of "users" lurking on a XenForo forum — especially if you're looking at online user logs — are usually bots**.
Here’s why:
---
### 1. **How XenForo Logs "Users"**
- XenForo records *any session* that accesses the forum.
- If the session matches a real, authenticated user, it shows that username.
- If it’s just an unauthenticated visitor, it logs their IP/browser info as a guest.
- **Bots** that don’t declare themselves as bots (or even some that do) can appear *just like normal guest sessions*.
---
### 2. **How Bots Slip In**
- Many bots *don't* have a proper User-Agent identifying them as Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.
- Some deliberately fake regular browser user agents like Chrome, Firefox, Safari.
- So unless you have very aggressive bot detection (e.g., Cloudflare Bot Management, custom server rules, updated robots.txt), **XenForo will log them as if they were real visitors**.
---
### 3. **When You Really Notice It**
- If your forum is small or niche but you see dozens or hundreds of “guests” or “users online,” it's almost certain that **the majority are crawlers, bots, or automated scripts**.
- Particularly if they're hanging on odd pages (like /members/, /help/terms/, /login/).
---
### 4. **Signs the "Users" Are Actually Bots**
| Symptom | What It Suggests |
|:---|:---|
| High "Guest" count at weird hours (like 3 AM) | Bot traffic |
| Lots of sessions from strange user agents (e.g., outdated browsers, suspicious strings) | Scrapers or bots |
| Traffic mostly to less-important pages, not forums or threads | SEO bots, scrapers |
| IPs resolving to datacenters, not residential ISPs | Definitely bots |
| Very short session durations (a few seconds) | Bots checking pages quickly |
---
### 5. **Concrete Numbers**
From real-world experience:
- On a lightly-trafficked XenForo forum (let's say 20 real actives per day), you might have **500-2000 "guests" per day**, **95% of them bots**.
- Even very big forums (millions of posts) still have *majority bot traffic* in their guest logs unless filtered heavily.
---
### 6. **What You Can Do About It**
If you want cleaner stats:
- Use **robots.txt** to block unnecessary bots.
- Install **addons like [DBTech's Security](https://xenforo.com/community/resources/dbtech-dragonbyte-security.5469/)** to block known bad bots.
- Consider **Cloudflare** with Bot Management settings enabled.
- Log IPs and user-agents; match common bot fingerprints.
- Or just accept that *most “online users” will be bots* unless you hardcore restrict access.
---
**Summary:**
If you are looking at your XenForo session logs and wondering if most lurkers are bots: **yes, almost certainly.** Only a small percentage of lurkers are likely real humans, unless you're a very active community with strong authenticated user activity.
