Our organic homepage traffic just recently spiked from about a typical under 20 per weekend to about 820 -- what could be causing this?
-
Website: http://www.myinjuryattorney.com
Our homepage typically receives under 20 organic visitors per weekend, but I just checked traffic this morning, and it was at a whopping 821 for just Saturday and Sunday. It's already at 212 this morning.
I'm heavily assuming this is fake traffic as there were about 818 drop offs after visiting the homepage, an 84.41% bounce rate, and an average session duration of 5 seconds. Our typical metrics -- last weekend for example, were: 13 visitors to the homepage, 38% bounce, and an average session duration of 1 minute 26 seconds.
Does anyone know who or what could be causing this? Could it be a competitor using negative SEO of some sort? Thank you in advance.
-
Hi Rick, sorry for the hiatus, I have a couple other questions for you.
1. Have you set up conversion tracking? Has there been an increase in conversions?
2. Do you have any campaigns running? Print, broadcast, radio, etc.? Many offline campaigns cause a boost in organic searches for my clients. -
-
Hi Brett - I was able to go into this filter and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
-
Hi Rick,
Since I haven't seen a response yet, I'm assuming I wasn't clear enough in my explanation so I went into an unfiltered view for one of my clients and found some ghost spam, then skitched it so you could see how to get there and examine it yourself on your website. Hope this helps!
-
Not just yet. Click on the secondary dimension drop down bar and type in hostname, or find it under the behavior bar. You can also look at just google traffic by clicking on Google first then setting the hostname as the secondary dimension. It should become apparent at that point if you have a lot of bots spoofing your traffic with a fake source.
-
Hi Brett - thank you! Do I have this set up right? I'm just seeing normal sources from what I can tell. https://www.screencast.com/t/t9VW5tSz
-
Yes, because this filter is based on the hostname. If a bot is spoofing the source but does not have a valid hostname (and most will not) then it will be filtered out by the include filter. Go into your GA data, go down to the source/medium report under acquisitions and set the secondary dimension to hostname.
If you're seeing something like (not set) next to Google/Organic traffic in the source then that's spam. I've got some in my unfiltered views as well. From the article I sent you:
"On the other hand, valid traffic will always use a real hostname. In most of the cases, this will be the domain. But it also can also result from paid services, translation services, or any other place where you've inserted GA tracking code."
So just make sure you compile a list of all the valid hostnames for your website and you should be fine.
-
Hi Brett,
Thank you for the info. Would all of this still apply if the traffic is considered organic and not referral?
-
Hi Rick,
Try checking your traffic against the secondary dimension "hostname". If a large number appear to be invalid hostnames then you've got yourself an answer. Referral traffic, also known as ghost spam, can be removed with an include filter. Moz wrote a great guide on how to do this here: https://moz.com/blog/stop-ghost-spam-in-google-analytics-with-one-filter
If you're at all concerned that the traffic could be ghost spam and you don't have this filter in place, then an easy means of checking is to implement the filter on a test view and see how it impacts your data. Just make sure you create a new view to test it on first, because I had a client accidentally exclude all of his valid hostnames and lost every last bit of actionable data.
Hope this helps!
-
Have you checked the landing pages that relate to the keywords? In that case you would hopefully be able to see what kind of pages are trending at the moment and increasing your traffic. A big increase in traffic might have an influence, but in the end 800 searches more daily are not that much.
-
I noticed a few months ago, that type of traffic was not just showing up under referral but also under organic in GA. As far as i am concerned, just another problem plaguing GA/GWMT.
Matt
-
Hi Martijn,
I'm checking now and for some reason it's not reflecting the high # of visitors. All of the queries also seem normal, and it's showing that none have been repeated over 5 times. There are however a ton of different, but pretty normal ones appearing. Any additional insight given that info? Thanks!!
-
Hi Matt, thanks for the quick answer! All of this traffic is actually showing up under our organic rather than referral
-
Sounds like you are experiencing "Referral Spam". Have you checked the sources in Google Analytics? It is essentially a spammy way of advertising domains and services.
Here are a few links to help you understand and fix the issue:
- https://moz.com/blog/how-to-stop-spam-bots-from-ruining-your-analytics-referral-data
- If you have GA: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034842?hl=en
Good Luck,
Matt
-
Hi Rick,
If you connected Google Search Console to your site you should be able to see in the Search Analytics data what kind of keywords did trigger the traffic. It could always be fake traffic but sometimes you just get lucky with certain keywords that you appear to rank for all of a sudden.
Martijn.
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
-
Can I create a new Website to promote just one set of services from a list of several services?
Hi, I have a 10 years old website, where I promote all my services - around 30 of them under 5 main categories. For example, my current website promotes these services. A service - with a1, a2, a3 services B service - with b1, b2, b3 services C service - with c1, c2, c3 services D service - with d1, d2, d3 services E service - with e1, e2, e3 services Now I want to promote just "A service" with its sub-services into a separate website, as that service is in demand now and also those keywords should be my main keywords. I want to connect my old website with the new one, to increase the trust among users. Can I do this? I hope I am not violating any Google rules by doing this. Please help with suggestions. Thanks. Jessi.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sudsat0 -
Client Wants To Use A .io Domain Name - How Bad For Organic?
Hi, I have a U.S. client who is stuck on a name that he wants to get as a .io (British Indian Ocean) domain name for a new site. Aside from the user confusion/weirdness, how much harder do you think this makes this sites organic in the U.S. in the future with a .io domain name? FYI, the other part of the domain name he wants to use is short, meaningless and implies nothing in and of itself. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 945012 -
Block unwanted traffic
Hello everyone, I have started developing a website about 45 days ago. I have noticed that I'm receiving traffic from adult websites. I've been tracking the traffic via GA. I have not started my link build process yet, but I'm still receiving about 15 to 30 visits per day from these websites. I've had this domain name without use for about 5 years. The domain name was originally registered in 1998. I don't have a background on the previous owners so I wouldn't know their SEO practice. What's the best practice to block this traffic? Google has yet to index the domain by the brand keyword. I feel the referring traffic could be affecting my SERPs. Bing has already index the site and started referring traffic by the brand keyword. Yes, the brand keyword is on the domain name (brandkeyword.com). Thanks in advanced.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vndflkvnlkzdfnv0 -
Link profile heavy with press release syndication links caused drop at Penguin 2.0
I'm wrestling with something that I'm hoping members of the community can provide input on.... I've working with an enterprise level client that is in the business of data capture and distribution. I've diagnosed a clear drop of traffic on May 22nd, i.e a loss of search visibility post Penguin 2.0. Their link profile is big! Discussions with internal stakeholders who have been with the company 10's of years confirm that no "link building" service providers have ever been hired and no over-zealous employee is ever likely to have tried to "do" link building internally. They are just one of those lucky companies that by their nature publish information that people want to link to and share. As a first port of call I've grouped links by anchor text and can see groups of hundreds of matching anchors based on their brand URL and specific page titles. The matching anchors have resulted from big take up of interesting data that they have marketed via press releases. NOT for link purposes. My question is this.... Does the community think or have evidence (or can point me toward any case studies) that show that Press release syndication alone could result in: a) a penguin penalty or...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | QubaSEO
b) a devaluing of press release type links during Penguin 2.0 that could have resulted in a loss of search visibility and give the impression of a penalty Your thoughts are much appreciated!0 -
Is it outside of Google's search quality guidelines to use rel=author on the homepage?
I have recently seen a few competitors using rel=author to markup their homepage. I don't want to follow suit if it is outside of Google's search quality guidelines. But I've seen very little on this topic, so any advice would be helpful. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smilingbunny0 -
IP-Based Content on Homepage?
We're looking to redesign one of our niche business directory websites and we'd like to place local content on the homepage catered to the user based on IP. For instance, someone from Los Angeles would see local business recommendations in their area. Pretty much a majority of the page would be this kind of content. Is this considered cloaking or in any way a bad idea for SEO? Here are some examples of what we're thinking: http://www.yellowbook.com http://www.yellowpages.com/ I've seen some sites redirect to a local version of the page, but I'm a little worried Google will index us with localized content and the homepage would not rank for any worthwhile keywords. What's the best way to handle this? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | newriver0 -
Free Mass Traffic Software
How does the community feel about Free Mass Traffic Software? Is this a scam or what?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | noork0 -
What does Youtube Consider Duplicate content and will it effect my ranking/traffic?
What does youtube consider duplicated content? If I have a power point type video that I already have on youtube and I want to change the beginning and end call to action, would that be considered duplicate content? If yes then how would this effect my ranking/youtube page. Will it make a difference if I have it embedded on my blog?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | christinarule0
