Advanced Features
Filter Out Robot Clicks from Reports
Search engine crawlers and bots — Googlebot, Bingbot, Yandex, and unidentifiable browser clients — hit your short links and inflate the click counts, so your reports overstate real interest. URL Shortify PRO's Filter Robots setting drops these automated clicks before they are counted. Turn it on once under Settings → Reports and every report reflects human visitors instead.
PRO feature
Filtering robot clicks is available in URL Shortify PRO. The free version does not offer the Filter Robots setting.
Turn on robot filtering
- Go to URL Shortify → Settings → Reports.
- Under Reporting Options, find Filter Robots — described as "Filter known Robots and unidentifiable browser clients from your click stats".
- Enable the checkbox.
- Save the settings.
The setting is off by default, so robot clicks are counted until you enable it. Once on, URL Shortify checks each incoming click against its known-robot detection and discards matches before recording them.
What gets filtered
With Filter Robots enabled, URL Shortify excludes:
- Known search engine crawlers and bots (such as Googlebot, Bingbot, and Yandex).
- Unidentifiable browser clients — requests that don't present a recognisable, human browser user agent.
These clicks are dropped at tracking time, so they never appear in your dashboard, per-link statistics, group reports, or CSV exports.
Filter robots vs. exclude IPs
Robot filtering and IP exclusion clean different kinds of noise, and most sites use both:
| Setting | Removes | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Filter Robots | Automated crawler and bot clicks | Traffic you can't predict by address |
| Excluded IP Addresses | Clicks from addresses you name | Your own visits, your team, monitoring tools |
See Exclude specific IP addresses for the address-based side.
Conclusion
Enabling Filter Robots under URL Shortify → Settings → Reports keeps crawler and unidentifiable-client clicks out of your statistics, so your numbers track real visitors. Because it is off by default, switch it on early — and pair it with IP exclusion to remove your own traffic too. For the full picture of what counts as a click, see understanding clicks and clean reports.
FAQs
Is filtering robot clicks a free or PRO feature?
Filtering robot clicks is a URL Shortify PRO feature. The Filter Robots checkbox appears under Settings → Reports only with a PRO license. On the free version there is no option to exclude bot traffic, so crawler clicks are counted alongside human ones.
Is robot filtering on by default?
No. Filter Robots is off by default, so URL Shortify counts robot clicks until you enable it. Go to URL Shortify → Settings → Reports, tick Filter Robots, and save. Turning it on early keeps crawler noise out of your reports from the start rather than after the numbers are already skewed.
Which bots does URL Shortify filter?
URL Shortify filters known search engine crawlers and bots — such as Googlebot, Bingbot, and Yandex — along with unidentifiable browser clients that don't present a recognisable human browser. These are matched and discarded at tracking time, so they never reach your dashboard, per-link statistics, or exports.
Does Filter Robots remove clicks already recorded?
No. Filter Robots applies only to new clicks from the moment you enable it; it doesn't retroactively remove bot clicks already counted. To clean up historical robot traffic, use the trim clicks tool to delete older click data.
What's the difference between Filter Robots and Excluded IP Addresses?
Filter Robots removes automated clicks from crawlers and bots you can't predict by address. Excluded IP Addresses removes clicks from specific addresses you name, such as your own office or a monitoring service. They cover different noise, so most sites enable both under Settings → Reports.