---
title: "Access Mode for Known Cloud Providers"
description: "Control cloud crawler impact on your Knowledge Base stats with flexible access modes that give you cleaner insights ✨"
url: "https://support.helpdocs.io/article/updo8caafu-access-mode-for-known-cloud-providers"
category: "Stats"
updated_at: "2026-05-07T13:32:57Z"
---

# Access Mode for Known Cloud Providers

Your analytics in HelpDocs give you valuable insights into how people use your Knowledge Base. But sometimes those stats can get a little skewed by traffic from cloud providers like Amazon, Google, or Azure when they crawl your content 🔎

With our Access Mode for Known Cloud Providers feature, you can control exactly how this traffic affects your stats—giving you cleaner data and a more accurate picture of your real user activity.

### Understanding Cloud Provider Traffic

Cloud providers regularly scan websites for various reasons. While this is normal internet behavior, it can sometimes create traffic spikes that don't represent actual customer usage of your Knowledge Base 🥴

These artificial spikes might make it seem like your docs are getting more views than they actually are—which isn't helpful when you're trying to understand how your customers really interact with your content.

### Available Access Modes

You can choose how HelpDocs handles traffic from known cloud providers by selecting one of three access modes:

| Mode               | What it does                                                                                                                              |
|--------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| **Allow**          | All traffic allowed and recorded in analytics.                                                                                            |
| **Drop Analytics** | Known cloud provider traffic allowed, but silently dropped from analytics. This is the default for HelpDocs accounts after December 2024. |
| **Block**          | Traffic from public clouds blocked entirely.                                                                                              |

### How to Set Your Access Mode

[Embedded iframe](https://player.vimeo.com/video/1076377867)

Configuring how HelpDocs handles cloud provider traffic is super simple:

1. Head to **Settings** > **General**
2. Find the **Advanced** section
3. Under **Access mode for known Cloud providers**, select your preferred access mode from the dropdown
4. Click **Save Changes**

Changing your access mode only affects future analytics data. Any past data collected under a different setting will remain unchanged in your stats.

### Choosing the Right Mode for Your Needs

Not sure which mode to pick? Here's a quick guide:

- **Allow**: Choose this if you want to see absolutely all traffic—including bots and crawlers.
- **Drop Analytics**: Perfect for most users who want cleaner analytics that focus on real customer usage. Cloud providers can still access your content, but their activity won't affect your stats.
- **Block**: Select this option if you want to completely prevent public cloud providers from accessing your Knowledge Base.

The "Drop Analytics" mode offers a great balance for most teams—it maintains accessibility while giving you more accurate stats that truly reflect how your customers are using your docs.

"Drop Analytics" mode still allows customer requests from AI engines like Claude and ChatGPT. "Block" prevents these requests entirely.

If you've been wondering why your analytics sometimes show unexpected spikes, switching to "Drop Analytics" mode might give you a clearer picture of your actual user engagement ✨