Thank you for your info, I also have the same issue and got in touch with Shopify support. I felt more confused by the end of the chat so this is helpful.
Topic summary
Sudden spikes of traffic from Singapore are appearing in Shopify Analytics across multiple stores, often within hours, with 100% bounce rate and shown as mobile. Google Analytics (GA) Realtime shows no corresponding visits.
Likely cause: “Bytespider,” a web crawler bot. Merchants can confirm in Shopify: Analytics > Reports > Sessions by location > three-column icon > enable Device/Browser; Singapore sessions list Bytespider.
Behavior: The bot crawls pages sequentially and typically stops after scanning all pages. Stores with many product pages see higher, longer spikes (reports from ~90 to 300+ sessions). GA doesn’t log these, and country/IP blocker apps don’t help.
Workarounds discussed: Allow it to finish; optionally attempt disallow rules in robots.txt, though effectiveness is uncertain. Support responses vary—some say it’s not harmful; one suggested a blocking app (users report it doesn’t stop Bytespider).
Impact: No confirmed harm or consistent sales impact; one merchant noted a slow day but likely coincidental. Concerns persist about scraping and misuse.
Status: No official Shopify-side fix reported. Several request platform-level/server-side mitigation. Discussion remains open.
1 Like