Sudden massive surge in traffic. Warn Google?

[Sootah]

I've got a buddy that has a REALLY trafficed site. I'm probably going to make him throw a link my way in a bit to sorta kick-start this site. (Had it a while, but up until now haven't done much with it)

More than likely it's going to go from very little traffic to a great deal for at least a day or two.

I'm rather fond of my income, but logic dictates that Google isn't going to mind the traffic because it should be able to tell that the referrer is legit.

Should I worry?

[Hobbs]

Don't worry

[John Carpenter]

We've had dozens of massive traffic spikes. There haven't been any problems, and we've never warned (bothered) Google before/after a spike.

[sven1977]

I could definitely need some of those buddies, too. Like at the NY-Times or better, the guy responsbile for the google homepage layout. :)

[mattg3]

I had a traffic surge after G somehow sent me suddenly for 4 hours masses of people. Next day I had a site review mail + warning about one page in my inbox. Nothing much happened but I think a warning light goes up and they will look your site.

Your friend should maybe install a randomisation script where the links is first displayed in 10% of all cases then 20% etc and slowly increase this.

something like

int i = random(100)

if (i < 10) then
show link
else
do nothing.

increase the 10 in i < 10 slowly to 100 over 1 or 2 weeks and you should be safe.

depending on the language you use random() might give a number between 0 and 1, then you would need something like i < 0.1 or so.

[Heartlander]

I somehow got a couple sites dugg and shoutwired and watched as our traffic went through the roof.
Never batted an eye or even considered contacting Google.
You traffic is none of their business.

I should point out that the traffic boost we got did nothing for ad clicks, but that's a story for another time in another forum.

Watch your clicks and don't worry about page views.

[Andrew Bassett]

Warn Google if you have a sudden, unexplainable spike in CTR. Don't worry about traffic.

[ronburk]

it should be able to tell that the referrer is legit.

In the general case, Google has no way of knowing who
referred traffic to you, except they know when it was them.

[frox]

In the general case, Google has no way of knowing who
referred traffic to you, except they know when it was them.

Ronburk, they do have the way.

We discussed this a few months ago:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[gregbo]

depending on the language you use random() might give a number between 0 and 1, then you would need something like i < 0.1 or so.

If using a form of random number generator that produces floating point numbers, make sure the variable you are testing against a (given) floating point value is also floating point (or that the proper data coercions are done).

[mattg3]

If using a form of random number generator that produces floating point numbers, make sure the variable you are testing against a (given) floating point value is also floating point (or that the proper data coercions are done).

0.1 is a float. Obviously you shouldn't declare

int comparevalue = 0.1

since this will cast as 0. But in my example that would not hurt until you find that bug, as random() wouldn't return anything < 0.

I am not sure why you are mentioning this.

[gregbo]

It's just generally good programming practice to make sure variables are properly declared according to the values they're likely to have.

[Petra Kaiser]

@John Carpenter
- We've had dozens of massive traffic spikes. There haven't been any problems -

same here!
do you use analytics on that site?
we do!

[John Carpenter]

@John Carpenter
- We've had dozens of massive traffic spikes. There haven't been any problems -

same here!
do you use analytics on that site?
we do!

Yes, we do. It's a good complement to AWStats.

Seeing it's your first post here, I would have said "Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Petra", but then I noticed you joined already months ago. :-)

[Petra Kaiser]

thanks
- Yes read only
- interesting benefit of analytics I guess!