topic Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores in General Zazzle Discussion

About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

Susang6 — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 22:33:52 GMT

I’ve been seeing a lot of concern about bot activity at our Zazzle stores, both in the community discussions and on other POD websites. It’s clearly something many creators are worried about. I spent some time researching the topic and ended up learning more than I expected. The biggest takeaway was that there’s a lot of mixed information out there, and not all of it lines up with how these systems actually work. I’m not a bot expert, just sharing what I’ve read and my own opinions.

Bots do crawl Zazzle, the same way they crawl every large e‑commerce site. They hit product pages, images, and categories, and sometimes that shows up as views or linkovers that don’t lead to sales. That part is normal and expected. I couldn’t find any article saying bots “change referral IDs,” because that isn’t something bots are capable of doing. Bots crawl pages, but they don’t behave like real shoppers and they don’t interact with referral cookies. Cloudflare explains how bots work, and Google Analytics explains how attribution works, and neither one includes anything about bots overwriting referral codes. I also want to mention that Facebook sends a lot of traffic.

A lot of those FB views come from people scrolling, tapping, and checking things out without commenting or buying right away. So some of the high view counts we see aren’t bots at all they’re just normal Facebook behavior. We may think a spike in traffic is bots, but it could very well be coming from our Facebook shares. A lot of the “strange” traffic we see is just regular shopper behavior. People browse on their phones, save things for later, click through a link and then wander around the site, or come back without the cookie. Pinterest can send a lot of clicks that don’t convert until much later. All of that shows up as views with no sales, but it’s human behavior, not bots manipulating anything. If anyone wants to read more about how bot traffic works in general, here’s what I read:

Cloudflare’s explanation of normal bot activity and why it shows up in analytics:
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/what-is-robots-txt/

And Cloudflare’s overview of bot traffic in general:
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/what-is-bot-traffic/

by Susan's Nature & Seasonal Studio

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

Susang6 — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:21:35 GMT

Sorry everyone...I have been doing a lot and did not realize that I posted a discussion similar to this one. Zazzle moderator okay to delete this one as the updated one has the links that explain bot behavior which is probably the better discussion https://community.zazzle.com/t5/general-zazzle-discussion/sharing-my-thoughts-on-linkovers-and-traffic-pattern/m-p/235799#M28741

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

MidnightZazzler — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 04:59:58 GMT

When I clicked on your link I got 'Access Denied'. Any thoughts? I'm logged into my account.

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

WBartworks — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 18:44:30 GMT

Yes, some of the views that don't result in sales are coming from Facebook, Pinterest, etc. However, the ones people have been complaining about are not coming from those sites. At Google Anaylitcs I can see I get tons of views with "0." engagement time. Almost all are coming from China and Singapore. These "0" engagement hits hurt your ranking on internet search engines.
Low Engagement Signals: Many bots land on a page and immediately leave, resulting in an artificially high bounce rate and low session duration. Google may interpret this high bounce rate as a sign that your content is low-quality, causing a drop in rankings.

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

Susang6 — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:27:12 GMT

When I used to publish for eHow and Demand Media, we were taught the same thing that bounce rate and short sessions were a sign of “low‑quality content” and that Google would push you down in search if people didn’t stay on the page long enough. Back then, everyone repeated it because it sounded logical, and it was the advice floating around in the SEO world at the time. We all believed it. But over the years, Google has been very clear that they don’t use Google Analytics data to rank anything. When I look at my Yard and Garden Secrets blog, the traffic is coming from all over the world. Singapore shows more than two thousand views, the United States is close behind, and then I have steady numbers from the Netherlands, China, Germany, Brazil, the UK, Vietnam, India, and a long list of “other.” That’s just how a public site behaves when it’s being crawled, shared, and accessed through different networks. And even with all of that mixed traffic, my blog still ranks normally in Google. My homepage shows up, my posts show up, and nothing about that global traffic has pushed me down in search.Zazzle works the same way. It’s a worldwide platform with servers, CDNs, and shoppers spread across every time zone. Their pages get crawled constantly, and their traffic gets routed through the same international networks that show up in my blog analytics. A lot of what looks like “strange” traffic on Zazzle is the same thing I see on my blog normal crawler activity, social media previews, mobile carriers, and people browsing from all over the world. None of that means the site is being penalized, and none of it means referral codes are being overwritten or that our ranking is being damaged.

If my blog can have that much international traffic and still rank just fine, then Zazzle which is even bigger and even more global is dealing with the same patterns on a much larger scale. The numbers look odd, but they’re normal for any site with worldwide reach.

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

Susang6 — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 01:36:11 GMT

This confirms that the old belief about bounce rate affecting ranking is outdated Google doesn’t use Analytics data as a ranking signal. I did a little more searching because I wanted something straight from Google, not just old SEO advice we all heard years ago. I found an excellent article that lays it out clearly. It includes a direct exchange with Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, confirming that Google does not use Google Analytics data for ranking even when GA is connected to Search Console. Someone asked him on X whether GA data is used to assess query behavior, and Danny replied, “As a ranking signal? No.” The article includes the verified screenshot of that conversation. Here’s the link: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ranking-ga-search-console-36672.html

screenshot form another article >

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

PAZP — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 16:50:22 GMT

Thank you for sharing all your research with us, Susan.

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

WBartworks — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 23:20:46 GMT

What do they use then? How does Google decide what should rank higher?

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

Susang6 — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:38:26 GMT

All the major search engines work toward the same goal: showing the most helpful and relevant result for whatever someone typed in. Google has said many times that they don’t use bounce rate or any Google Analytics data for ranking, and Bing and DuckDuckGo follow the same general principles. None of them are looking at how long someone stayed on your page or whether they scrolled. They’re trying to understand what the product actually is and whether it matches the searcher’s intent.

For our Zazzle listings, it works a lot like blogging. Search engines need enough information to understand the product, the design, the style, and who it’s for. When a listing only says something like “blue key chain,” there just isn’t enough detail for any search engine to work with. But when you use a clear title written the way shoppers search, and you write a fuller description that explains the design, the features, and the benefits, suddenly the search engines have something they can understand and match to real searches. High‑quality designs, strong titles, and a helpful description make a much bigger difference than any engagement metric ever could.

So whether someone is searching on Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, the same idea applies: the clearer and more complete your listing is, the easier it is for the search engines to figure out what you’re offering and show it to the right people

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

WBartworks — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:35:20 GMT

Thank you, Susan, for your explanation! It is very helpful!

Re: About Bot Views and Linkovers at Our Zazzle Stores

Ellvineblue — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:09:45 GMT

Hello,

I just want to report, unusual visits to my shop.

I received a lot of views last night, much more than my usual traffic.

It looks like the bots have been crawling my shop again as I did not have any sales to explain this behavior.

I put watermark on. Just hope it helps a bit. Wishing you a good day.