Table of Contents
Using Spam Filters
Filter out bots & scrapers to see accurate visitor data. Access via Stats > Filter > Spam filter and choose from 4 levels: Off, Permissive, Balanced (recommended), or Strict.
Tired of automated traffic skewing your Stats? 🤖 The spam filter helps you see accurate visitor data by filtering out bots, scrapers, headless browsers, and other automated clients from your analytics reports.
What the Spam Filter Does
The spam filter analyzes incoming traffic to your Knowledge Base and removes automated visitors from your Stats reports. This means the numbers you see in Overview, Feedback, Health, and Search tabs reflect real human visitors rather than bots and scrapers.
You can choose from four filtering levels to match your needs. Each level determines how aggressively HelpDocs filters out automated traffic.
Using the Spam Filter
You can access it through the Stats filter menu:
- Head to Stats
- Click the Filter button in the top-right
- Find the Spam filter dropdown in the popover
- Select your desired filtering level
- Click Apply Filters
Your Stats will immediately update to reflect the filtering level you've chosen. You can change this setting anytime to see how different filtering levels affect your data.
Understanding the Filter Levels
HelpDocs offers four filtering levels, each balancing accuracy and completeness differently. Choose the one that best matches your needs:
Filter Level | Description |
Off | Show every request in your reports. Same behavior as before this feature existed. Use this when you want the raw numbers or when comparing against historic pre-feature reports. |
Permissive | Hides only traffic we're highly confident is automated. Very few real visitors will be affected. Good for accounts where you'd rather err on the side of including everything. |
Balanced (recommended) | Hides traffic showing multiple signs of being automated. A small number of real visitors on uncommon browser setups may be hidden. This is the default and works great for most accounts. |
Strict | Hides any traffic showing an automated signal, even a single one. Will hide a meaningful number of real visitors, especially those using privacy-focused browsers or unusual configurations. Only pick this if bot traffic is severe and you'd rather lose a few real visitors than see any automation in your numbers. |
For more information about filtering your Stats data, check out Filtering Stats and Understanding Stats. For another way to manage automated traffic, see Access Mode for Known Cloud Providers.
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