Huge Spike in Direct Traffic from IE7

[SJVC_Susie]

Our site is seeing a huge spike in direct (none) traffic from IE 7 from July 8, 2014 - on. June 25 - July 7 showed 21 direct visits from IE 7; July 8 - July 20 is showing 5,889 (an increase of 27,943%). All traffic from the spike is going to our homepage.

Other Google Analytics' stats for this direct (none) IE 7 traffic:

Bounce Rate: 99.52%
Avg. Session Duration: 0:02
Pages/session: 1.01
Mostly all new users

What's strange is that the traffic is from a variety of cities and networks. What could be causing this? Has anyone experienced this before?

[DannyGavin]

We have removed all of our adroll code - and seeing it start up as well.

[KeriMorgret]

I'm seeing a few reports on that in the comments of the SER piece at http://www.seroundtable.com/direct-traffic-ie7-analytics-18897.html, too.

[sageonena]

Looks like the traffic has returned ...

U0IEcnK

[AndyMacLean]

Seeing the same thing from July 8th onwards for both companies, and both use/have used Adroll.

[KeriMorgret]

Adding a fresh reply here so people get notified in their inboxes (editing a previous reply doesn't generate a new email).

This is a problem with AdRoll and Perfect Audience, and both are aware of the problem (and invite you to contact them with any issues regarding your account). An update post is at http://www.seroundtable.com/adroll-invalid-traffic-18922.html

[SJVC_Susie]

We saw the same significant drop yesterday, too. There have been some links to AdRoll and Perfect Audience mentioned in the comments sections of http://www.seroundtable.com/direct-traffic-ie7-analytics-18897.html. Both of those companies have made a response in the comments too.

[DannyGavin]

Interestingly enough - today the # of these visits drastically decreased for some of our clients. Not totally gone, but significantly lower. Anyone else see something similar?

[K-WINTER]

We're experiencing the same issue starting around the same time and ongoing. Seems to have happened in the past from what I've read but no one seems to have answers.

[DannyGavin]

Keri - thank you so much for the update - I hope that Barry can all get an answer quickly!

[KeriMorgret]

Lots of people are seeing this at the moment. Still no reason has been identified, but you're not alone. Barry has a few more details on SER at http://www.seroundtable.com/direct-traffic-ie7-analytics-18897.html.

[DannyGavin]

We have a client who is also experiencing the same thing - it looks like that this is happening to a lot of people now and in the past checkout:

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/huge-increase-in-direct-traffic-to-our-site-in-the-last-four-days-with-a-high-bounce-rate.329389/

and

https://code.google.com/p/analytics-issues/issues/detail?id=138

I can't seem to find a solution. The closest thing is setting up a filter like here: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2013/09/05/filter-bots-google-analytics/#sr=g&m=o&cp=or&ct=-tmc&st=(opu qspwjefe)&ts=1406181439 however, the service providers in GA are all generic.

Does anyone else have a solution?

[schmeetz]

I'm seeing the same direct traffic spike in IE 7.0. 1500 visitors/day. No clue why.

[SJVC_Susie]

Thank so much! I think I will try CloudFlare out.

[FedeEinhorn]

ADROLL is the one to blame: http://www.seroundtable.com/adroll-invalid-traffic-18922.html

If it isn't messing with your server services and just spiking in Analytics, I would just let it there and enjoy the (probably fake) traffic.

As there's actually no referrer and nothing tiding that traffic to a source, there's not much you can do aside of blocking some IPs.

You can also test-drive CloudFlare (very easy to setup, and free) which filter fake traffic (among other benefits) using known IP addresses and browser integrity checks prior to send the hit to your server.

[SJVC_Susie]

Thanks for your response.

There isn't a specific location and/or network that stands out, which is really strange.

AT&T is up 14,050%, Time Warner is up 2,300%, Comcast is up 18,600% (all for direct IE 7 traffic).

California, Texas, Florida are all showing large jumps for IE 7 direct traffic, with CA being the largest. That's not surprising since we're a CA college system, but we're also not seeing a specific city responsible for the spike. It's spread out across LA, Fresno, Bakersfield, etc.

[AdamWormann]

What location is it coming from?  Sometimes you'll get a ton of traffic all from the same spot, and it winds up being some kind of bot or spam that's getting picked up.  I'd check the network too.

-Adam

[SJVC_Susie]

Thanks for the response.

I checked with my team, and to their recollection, nobody ordered a campaign that would have caused this. Our webmaster is reporting no server damage, either.

[FedeEinhorn]

Have you signed up for any traffic exchange, affiliate program or similar? Purchased a service on fiverr or similar?

If those hits are not causing any damage to your server, then just ignore it... If it is causing damage, you might be a victim of a DDoS attack...

First, make sure you haven't ordered a service that results in that traffic, we'll go from there.