Google Analytics unexplainable traffic spike
-
Viewing this report **Behaviour > Site content > All pages **with primary dimensions of **Page ** and **Page title **are showing different results for one specific page on our site.
We noticed a huge spike in pageviews and entrances to that specific page on our site. The user flow report shows traffic going through and from the page (in high volume) from other pages on the site which suggests that it's not the usual case of spam referrals.
When I view the report above by page, I get unrealistic data. Over 600% increase in pageviews and over 900% increase in entrances. When I view by page title however, I get realistic results.
Can anyone help shed some light on why these two reports will be different?
Anyone else seeing similar issues?
-
Very strange that you CPC data shows a much smaller increase than GA, especially since they are connected. Maybe a quick call to Google to see if maybe GA glitched during that period.
Here is the page for Google support, I would try the paid search avenue as that seems to get you better results when chatting with them. Just mention your AdWords data give a different story than GA and see what they can figure out.
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1385067
Good luck.
ht
tps://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1385067
-
Thanks for your reply Katherine.
I'll try to use that app to see if it can help. I had already checked to see if it was a device type issue or browser issue but had no luck. The traffic increase was spread among desktops, tablets and phones each recording over 600% increases.
I'll give the app a try. Thanks
-
Thanks for your reply Shawn.
The traffic is coming from Organic, Direct and Paid mediums. This is where it starts to get interesting. Adwords data shows only 18 clicks for the related campaign while the report shows over 1000% increase in entrances for CPC traffic.
Using click data, there was only a recorded 20% increase in clicks from 15 to 18. How can it be that the page is recording such a massive increase in entrances from CPC traffic? Then there is the whole mystery surrounding organic and direct mediums.
I had a look in GWT as per your suggestions and cannot see any growth in search term. I initially thought an increase in the SERPs could be the reason but I soon ruled this out when I realised the data for both page and page title were not correlated whereas it is for other pages.
-
Flip the secondary dimension to see if you see any patterns. I would first look at source/medium, then user/mobile to see if it's a desktop/mobile related issue.
You could also try this plugin: https://mark.shinyapps.io/ga-effect
-
First thought, where is the traffic coming from > organic, email, direct, etc.?
You can also view Search Analytics in console (GWT). I would view pages and select the time period of the spike, compare it to the previous period then view queries to see if there was a spike in impressions for any terms. Check positions and see if also during that time any term increased in rank. It could be with the recent algo updates that you've benefited from a higher position that has helped.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why am i seeing google.inc in analytics as direct traffic? Bug?
Recently i have seen two clients sites see a spike in direct traffic coming from google.inc. Is this a bot/bug which i should filter out. Just a bit confused why google.inc has visited our clients site 676 times! Any insight would be great.
Reporting & Analytics | | BlueWren1 -
Question re Google Analytics and its more accurate alternatives
Hi guys There are two main issues we have with Google Analytics, and I'd really appreciate if anyone has the time to give an answer to that. We completely miss organic traffic data before 7/22/2013 although our account is active since 2005. Any thoughts on that? Is it the not provided move that swiped out all data or something else? Even for the data we do have there is lots of inaccuracies, and we are thinking on switching or at least adding a new analytics software, any recommendations? (FYI, it turns out we do not keep access logs on the server for more than 2 months, and we might fix that for future references, but now we are looking for external solution). Any help will be much appreciated Thanks Lily
Reporting & Analytics | | wspwsp0 -
Tracking time spent on a section of a website in Google Analytics
Hi, I've been asked by a client to track time spent or number of pages visited on a specific section of their website using Google Analytics but can't see how to do this. For example, they have a "golf" section within their site and want to measure how many people either visit 5 page or more within the golf section or spend at least 6 minutes browsing the various golf section pages. Can anyone advise how if this can be done, and if so, how I go about it. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | geckonm0 -
E-commerce data import Google Analytics
Hi there, Since a few weeks we have started a cooperation with a big online wholesale company which now sells our products. I want to import simple E-commerce data: amount of transactions and revenue. More detailed data such as amount of products, name of products, etc. is not necessary in the first place. Now I discovered the 'data import' functionality in Google Analytics but I can't find any suitable option for E-commerce data import. The data from the wholesale company is gathered in a nice export in a separate system, so there should be a way ti import this data into Analytics. Could anybody help me with this? Any advice is welcome! Thanks in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | MarcelMoz
Marcel0 -
Strange Traffic / Viewed content in Analytics
Hi Im looking at the content viewed in December for a clients site and there's a high number of page views for some non-existent pages which received multiple hits eg. domain.com/dr-capability/ with 241 page views (54 unique page views) How can you have multiple page views (and many unique page views) for pages that don't exist ? Is it possible page is being generated automatically or something ? if so how come ? Any ideas as to whats causing this much appreciated ? All Best Dan ps - also many above average home page views
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Google Analytics - Tracking a Goal from 1 Domain to Another
Hi there, been combing this page for some answers - https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingSite but can't seem to figure it out. Scenario - Site A Site B Currently have 2 different GA accounts set up on each. Is it possible to Track a Goal that happens on Site B, that comes from Site A - In Site A Reports? So say, Site A has a Newsletter, directing them to Site A but promoting Site B - i'd like to track the effectiveness of the newsletter. Site A is running a white label of Site B service. Thoughts? Cheers
Reporting & Analytics | | IsHot0 -
Google Analytics for multiple languages on multiple domains
Hi folks A quick question in regards to setting up Google Analytics for a website with multiple languages on multiple domains. The domains that needs to be tracked are: www.example.com -> English www.example.se -> Swedish www.example.dk -> Danish To my best knowledge this can be acheived in Google Analytids using 3 different setups: Different accounts Different properties Profiles What would you guys consider the best approach?
Reporting & Analytics | | Resultify
Pros and cons? Have a great day Fredrik0 -
Ideas Why Our Google News Traffic Disappearing?
The traffic to our major market newspaper website from Google News has dropped nearly 100% in the past ten days. Any ideas why might be happening?
Reporting & Analytics | | wlis990