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WP Engine has released its 2025 Website Traffic Trends Report, offering a clear snapshot of the Bot-First Reality that is already reshaping the hosting industry. This report draws on first-party data and insights from external platforms like Google CrUX and Cloudflare to highlight the changes occurring at scale.

For hosting providers, platform owners, and infrastructure decision-makers, the report reveals a stark reality: traffic patterns, cost drivers, and performance risks are evolving faster than most organizations are ready to handle.

Bots: Now a Baseline, Not an Edge Case

A key finding in WP Engine’s 2025 traffic report is that nearly 1 in 3 web requests globally now originate from bots. This extends beyond traditional search crawlers to include AI-driven automation that is consuming significant portions of hosting infrastructure.

The report reveals that bot traffic accounts for up to 70% of dynamic resource consumption, directly impacting hosting costs, performance budgets, and infrastructure decisions. Alarmingly, 76% of bot traffic remains unverified, making it difficult for most organizations to identify and manage the source of the traffic hitting their sites. Despite this, only 38% of organizations are currently using dedicated bot-mitigation solutions, exposing them to increasing operational risks.

Security Maturity: The Link Between Performance and Cost

WP Engine’s report also shows a strong correlation between security maturity and website performance. Sites that fully enforce HTTPS are not only more secure but also faster in terms of Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).

Websites serving traffic exclusively over HTTPS achieve 1–5 seconds faster LCP compared to sites still using HTTP. The gap between HTTPS and HTTP performance has widened over the past year, suggesting that security practices have now become a performance issue. As such, organizations that lag in security practices face not only potential security risks but also increased operational costs.

The report also highlights a divide between large and small organizations. Larger organizations have nearly universal adoption of HTTPS and two-factor authentication, while smaller organizations are lagging by about 25%. For hosting businesses that serve SMBs and mid-market customers, this security gap can lead to inconsistent platform performance and higher support overhead.

Edge Security and Filtering: Performance Benefits

As the Bot-First Reality takes hold, hosting providers must adapt their security tools to ensure performance consistency. WP Engine’s report indicates that security tools are no longer just defensive measures but are essential to maintaining performance stability.

By filtering bot traffic closer to the user, hosting teams can reduce long-haul requests, protect origin infrastructure, and ensure more consistent performance during heavy automation traffic loads. Managed edge security solutions result in cleaner traffic profiles and fewer performance spikes compared to teams relying on manual or reactive security measures. This shift transforms security from an add-on into a foundational element of traffic management.

The Growing Performance Gaps Across Regions

WP Engine’s 2025 report also reveals widening performance gaps between regions. North America and Europe continue to lead in LCP results, while fast-growing regions like Asia and Latin America are falling behind due to slower optimization efforts.

A major factor in these performance disparities is the adoption of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). Nearly 50% of the top 10 million websites tracked by Google CrUX do not use a CDN. However, sites that use CDNs report an average LCP improvement of about 20%.

Mobile performance continues to lag behind desktop performance globally, contributing to the growing performance gap. As mobile becomes the dominant source of web traffic, this gap creates strain on infrastructure and leads to degraded user experiences, particularly in emerging markets.

What Hosting Leaders Need to Know Going Into 2026

The most important takeaway from WP Engine’s 2025 Traffic Report is that hosting providers need to adopt a holistic approach to the Bot-First Reality. In 2026, reliable hosting will rely on three interconnected pillars: intelligent traffic management, security maturity, and consistent performance across regions and devices.

Bot traffic is no longer a future issue; it’s already shaping hosting cost structures, performance, and analytics. Hosting platforms that continue to treat bots, security, and performance as separate issues will struggle to scale efficiently in the coming years.

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