What do the overview cards show?
The report opens with eight cards summarizing automated traffic for the current window and filters. The first two are totals; the remaining six count how many requests each detection layer caught.How does tinyanalytics detect bots?
tinyanalytics runs six detection layers over every request, listed in the table above. They range from the obvious — a crawler that announces itself in its user agent — to signals that catch bots actively hiding, like datacenter networks, missing browser headers, crawl-shaped request bursts, and automation flags in the browser runtime. A request flagged by any layer is counted here instead of in your human analytics. Because the layers overlap, one request can be caught by several at once, so the six layer counts can add up to more than the Bot requests total. Detected bots are given synthetic sessions and kept entirely out of your session counts and live visitor counter, so automated traffic can never inflate your real numbers.Period comparison isn’t available on this report. The date-range picker on the Bots & AI crawlers page has no compare option — see compare periods.
Which AI crawlers are reading my site?
The report leads with an AI crawlers section naming the AI bots that visited — GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Bytespider, CCBot, and others. A crawler that hides its user-agent but comes from a known AI network is still counted and named by its operator (such as Anthropic or OpenAI). AI crawlers that can’t be named individually roll up into Other AI crawler. The bot-traffic-over-time chart draws a second “of which AI crawlers” line beneath the total, so you can see AI crawling grow independently of ordinary bot traffic. It’s styled in violet rather than the red of the total line — an AI crawler reading your site is usually something you want if you care about being cited in AI answers.How is bot traffic broken down?
Below the chart, bot traffic is broken down the same way human traffic is:- Referrers, Pages, Countries — where bots come from and what they hit.
- Devices — the browser, operating system, and device a bot reports (often sparse for headless crawlers).
- Categories, patterns, and networks — the bot’s category (search, AI, social), the matched pattern, and the operating network.
Crawling is not citation. This report shows that an AI crawler read a page — the step that comes before you’re cited in an AI answer. It cannot tell you whether a crawl produced a citation, and no user-agent or referrer can: that needs the AI platforms’ own data. To see the other end of the funnel — humans who clicked through from an AI answer — use the AI traffic report.
Frequently asked questions
Do bots count toward my visitor numbers in tinyanalytics?
Do bots count toward my visitor numbers in tinyanalytics?
No. Detected bots are given synthetic sessions and kept entirely out of your session counts, visitor counts, and live visitor counter, so automated traffic can never inflate your real numbers. The Bots & AI crawlers report is where you see that traffic on purpose.
Can tinyanalytics detect bots that hide their user-agent?
Can tinyanalytics detect bots that hide their user-agent?
Yes. tinyanalytics flags a request as a bot in two ways: a known user-agent pattern, and a known network (the ASN a crawler operates from). The network check catches crawlers that disguise their user-agent, and those are named by their operator, such as Anthropic or OpenAI.
Which AI crawlers does the tinyanalytics bots report name?
Which AI crawlers does the tinyanalytics bots report name?
The AI crawlers section names GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Bytespider, CCBot, and others. AI crawlers that can’t be named individually roll up into Other AI crawler.
Does a crawl mean an AI assistant cited my page?
Does a crawl mean an AI assistant cited my page?
No. The Bots & AI crawlers report shows only that an AI crawler read a page — the step that comes before a citation. No user-agent or referrer can tell you whether a crawl produced a citation. To see humans who clicked through from an AI answer, use the AI traffic report.
Related
AI traffic
Humans who clicked through from an AI assistant — the other half.
How tinyanalytics works
Why bot traffic is kept out of your human analytics.
Filter your data
Narrow bot traffic to one crawler, page, or country.
Dashboard overview
Your human analytics, with bots kept separate.