How "Load Alternate" Mode Works
While "Hide GTM" mode is the simplest and easiest mode to implement, but it may not meet your needs if there are tags you need to fire for bots. If you only have a tag or two you need to fire for bots and the rest are reserved for humans, "Load Alternate" mode will be significantly faster and easier to set up than "Send Info" mode.
In "Load Alternate" mode, Bot Badger will detect if the current website visitor is human or a bot. If human, it will load your primary Google Tag Manager (GTM) container. If a bot, it will load an alternate GTM container.
You may be forced into loading a tag for bots if you are installing a new service on your website and the service needs to "check" to see their code fire to function properly or allow you to finish the installation process. In that case, you can create a new, empty container in Google Tag Manager specifically for bots and install that tag in both.
"Load Alternate" mode can also be helpful if you want to create a separate Google Analytics account to see what the bot traffic looks like and watch out for false positives. In that case, you'd create a new Google Tag Manager container and then configure it to send data to a separate, new Google Analytics property used just for bot analysis
Finally, if you'd like to use Bot Badger to combat form spam, it may be possible to create a simple custom HTML tag to delete all form tags (directing any false positives to call you), or a more complex one to add extra controls like captchas in front of forms, but only for bots (or suspected bots).
"Load Alternate" mode can strike a nice balance between "Hide GTM" mode and "Send Info" mode and fills the needs of some edge cases, but here's why you might need to select another mode.
You want to get Bot Badger set up quickly and without risk of errors
You don't understand a bunch of what's written above and need a little time to up your skills
Learn more about "Send Info" mode here.
You have logic you'd like to perform based on if the current visitor is a bot (or human)
It is important to you that current analytics line up with historical analytics and you'd like to have custom dimensions to filter bot from human traffic inside of Google Analytics instead of simply removing the bot traffic altogether.
Your site doesn't work properly without GTM running
Learn more about "Send Info" mode here.
In "Load Alternate" mode, Bot Badger will detect if the current website visitor is human or a bot. If human, it will load your primary Google Tag Manager (GTM) container. If a bot, it will load an alternate GTM container.
You may be forced into loading a tag for bots if you are installing a new service on your website and the service needs to "check" to see their code fire to function properly or allow you to finish the installation process. In that case, you can create a new, empty container in Google Tag Manager specifically for bots and install that tag in both.
"Load Alternate" mode can also be helpful if you want to create a separate Google Analytics account to see what the bot traffic looks like and watch out for false positives. In that case, you'd create a new Google Tag Manager container and then configure it to send data to a separate, new Google Analytics property used just for bot analysis
Finally, if you'd like to use Bot Badger to combat form spam, it may be possible to create a simple custom HTML tag to delete all form tags (directing any false positives to call you), or a more complex one to add extra controls like captchas in front of forms, but only for bots (or suspected bots).
"Load Alternate" mode can strike a nice balance between "Hide GTM" mode and "Send Info" mode and fills the needs of some edge cases, but here's why you might need to select another mode.
You might need "Hide GTM" mode if:
You want to get Bot Badger set up quickly and without risk of errors
You don't understand a bunch of what's written above and need a little time to up your skills
Learn more about "Send Info" mode here.
You might need "Send Info" mode if:
You have logic you'd like to perform based on if the current visitor is a bot (or human)
It is important to you that current analytics line up with historical analytics and you'd like to have custom dimensions to filter bot from human traffic inside of Google Analytics instead of simply removing the bot traffic altogether.
Your site doesn't work properly without GTM running
Learn more about "Send Info" mode here.
Updated on: 22/01/2024
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