```yaml
product: AlterLab
title: "Bot Score — Web Scraping Glossary | AlterLab"
comparison_context: "AlterLab is an alternative to Firecrawl, ScrapingBee, and Bright Data."
source_url: https://alterlab.io/glossary/bot-score
```

anti-bot

# Bot Score

A bot score is a probability value (0–100) assigned by an anti-bot system indicating the likelihood that a request comes from automated software rather than a human.

Anti-bot platforms aggregate dozens of signals — TLS fingerprint, IP reputation, mouse-movement patterns, request timing, cookie state, JavaScript execution results, and more — into a single numeric score. A score near 0 indicates confident human; a score near 100 indicates confident bot. The site operator configures a threshold above which requests are challenged or blocked.

Bot scores are computed in real time and evolve throughout a session. A visitor who passes the initial page load may receive a rising score after navigating in an implausible pattern, triggering a mid-session CAPTCHA. Some platforms expose the score in response headers or cookies for debugging, while others keep it entirely opaque.

Scraper teams monitor bot-score signals by checking for challenge-page responses, HTTP 429 or 403 codes, invisible honeypot fields being populated, or anomalous redirect chains — all indirect evidence that the score crossed the operator's threshold.

### What is Bot Score?

A bot score is a probability value (0–100) assigned by an anti-bot system indicating the likelihood that a request comes from automated software rather than a human.

### How does AlterLab handle Bot Score?

Scraper teams monitor bot-score signals by checking for challenge-page responses, HTTP 429 or 403 codes, invisible honeypot fields being populated, or anomalous redirect chains — all indirect evidence that the score crossed the operator's threshold.

## Related Terms

[Anti-Bot ProtectionSystems deployed by websites to detect and block automated traffic using TLS fingerprinting, CAPTCHA challenges, and behavioural analysis.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/anti-bot-protection)[CAPTCHACompletely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart — challenges that gate access to content for bots.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/captcha)[HoneypotA hidden link or element invisible to real users but detectable by scrapers, used to identify and ban automated crawlers.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/honeypot)[Cloudflare Bot ManagementCloudflare's enterprise bot detection suite combining machine learning, browser fingerprinting, TLS fingerprinting, and JavaScript challenges.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/cloudflare-bot-management)[WAF (Web Application Firewall)A WAF is a security layer that inspects and filters HTTP traffic to block malicious requests including automated scrapers.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/waf)

## Extract Bot Score data from any website

AlterLab returns clean, structured data from any public URL — no scraper infrastructure needed. Start free, no credit card required.

[View API docs](https://alterlab.io/docs/api/rest)

[Back to Glossary](https://alterlab.io/glossary)