Bots now make up a massive share of web traffic, but not all bots are enemies. Search crawlers and accessibility tools are critical, while scrapers, credential-stuffers, and AI harvesters inflate hosting bills, distort analytics, and put your content and brand at risk. The challenge for Drupal site owners isn’t just stopping bots, but deciding which to embrace, which to challenge, and which to block.
In this session, we’ll explore the business cases, risks, and tradeoffs behind bot management through real-world stories and Drupal-specific strategies. Topics include:
- The spectrum of bots: from search crawlers to credential-stuffing scripts.
- Business impacts: distorted analytics, higher infrastructure costs, SEO and IP risks.
- Drupal tactics: modules like Crawler Rate Limit, Shield, and Flood Control.
- Case studies: success stories and lessons learned from higher ed and enterprise.
- The future of bots: Crawlers, attribution, and new efforts to monetize web scraping.
This session is for product owners, marketers, and technical leaders who want a practical framework for measuring bot traffic, evaluating tradeoffs, and making sustainable decisions—so you can stop fighting shadows and start shaping the traffic that really matters.
