Bot Detection Issues

Known Bots Not Appearing in Reports

Server logs confirm GPTBot visited but not in PulseRank

Checklist:

• Caching Bypass: Some aggressive caches block tracking AJAX. Solution: Exclude /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php from cache
• IP Verification Failed: Bot may not be from official IP range. Check: PulseRank → Settings → Diagnostics → Current Request Inspection. PulseRank may categorize as unverified scraper.
• Tracking Disabled: Check: PulseRank → Settings → General. Ensure tracking is not disabled by filter hook.
• Session Threshold: Very short visits (< 1 second) may be filtered. Bot must request at least one resource.

Verify in Server Logs:

# Apache access.log
grep "GPTBot" /var/log/apache2/access.log

# Nginx access.log
grep "GPTBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log

False Positive Bot Detection

Human visitors detected as bots

Rare but possible causes:

• VPN/Proxy from Datacenter: User’s IP matches datacenter range. PulseRank may flag as potential bot.
• Browser Extension: User has extension that modifies user-agent. May match bot pattern.
• Curl/Wget Scripts: Developer testing with command-line tools. Correctly identified as bots.

Solution:

PulseRank excludes logged-in editors by default (Settings → Exclude Logged-In Users). For testing, disable tracking via consent filter:

add_filter( 'pulserank_tracking_enabled', '__return_false' );

IP Verification Always Failing

All bots marked as ‘Unverified’ or not detected

Cause: External API requests blocked

Diagnosis:

1. Check if your server can reach: gstatic.com (Google), bing.com (Microsoft), openai.com (OpenAI)
2. Test connectivity:

$response = wp_remote_get( 'https://www.gstatic.com/ipranges/goog.json' );
var_dump( $response );

Solutions:

• Firewall Blocking: Whitelist domains in hosting firewall. Contact host to allow outbound HTTPS to these domains.
• SSL Certificate Issue: Update CA certificates on server. Check with: curl -I https://www.gstatic.com
• PHP Disabled Functions: Ensure curl_exec or fsockopen not disabled. Check: phpinfo() → disabled_functions

Workaround: IP verification is optional. PulseRank will still detect bots by user-agent alone.