I'm worried about having much higher impressions/clicks

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I'm worried about having much higher impressions/clicks

my site is on Slashdot today

freitasm

7:48 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

My site is on Slashdot today... The number of pages served is now 4x the usual for a weekday, and growing as the day goes.

Add Slashdot traffic + increased CTR because of move to board format done this weekend and I'm afraid Google will send me an e-mail with "How come your traffic and impressions are so high now"?

Or does it get referrers on its code, and check this?

Hmmm...

bhartzer

7:59 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Don't be worried, a lot of people's traffic goes up and down.

Macro

8:34 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

On occasions like that I've sent them an email in advance explaining why stats may look odd. They've always replied to say thanks for letting us know.

freitasm

8:41 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Thanks... Just sent them an e-mail.

The thing is not only a spike, but the site served in two hours a whole day's worth of impressions.

dmorison

8:52 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

The question is; are you standing up to it?

I got "farked" a while back and only just stood up to that; and a "farking" is supposed to be mild compared to a slashdotting...!

JohnKelly

8:53 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

First, congratulations! I'm in agreement with the others - send an email to Google letting them know. Also you might want to make sure your site is not showing PSA's and is showing "geek-centric" ads if at all possible.

You may also want to let your web host know so they can make any adjustments at their end.

loanuniverse

8:57 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

I disagree. My view is: if it isn't broken don't fix it. If the spike in traffic does cause an email from Google then you can reference the "slashdot effect".

Jolly_Roger

9:09 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

I was slashdotted a few weeks back. My (dynamic) site stood up well to the extra 80,000 page views(!) in the 24 hours that my article was on the front page of slashdot. My adsense pageviews didn't go up by that much since I believe a large minority of /. users have Javascript disabled. My adsense impressions were substantially less than my actual pageviews.

My ctr dropped like a stone that day -- although total clicks were up quite a bit -- offsetting my adsense worries. Still no email from google so I guess they understand a good slashdotting :)

It was well worth the worry because I got linked from a bunch of new websites that had never linked to me before.

[edited by: Jolly_Roger at 9:45 pm (utc) on Oct. 28, 2003]

onfire

9:16 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Nope, i would go with the Proactive rather then the Reactive. Why wait for Google to close you account and then defend yourself.

If you are seeing something not normal on your site and its affecting your stats, then it does no harm at all in letting Google know this, before they contact you to say goodbye.

freitasm

11:27 pm on Oct 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

The question is; are you standing up to it?
I got "farked" a while back and only just stood up to that; and a "farking" is supposed to be mild compared to a slashdotting...!

Yes, the server is doing well, thanks. No need for emergency procedures...

I've sent an e-mail already, but no reply. Let's just wait.

aroach

5:36 am on Oct 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

I would give anything to get slashdotted. I'm jealous.

freitasm

10:12 pm on Oct 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Interesting enough my site had 200% more page impressions, with corresponding increase in GA impressions.

However CTR for this day was 1/2 of the normal. I take that visitors from /. are not really into buy mode...

Today my impressions are back to normal, and CTR are up again.

Conclusion (as lots already know): traffic only doesn't mean anything. You need an interested traffic...

OTOH, of course the CPM ads from TribalFusion did well...

jonknee

10:31 pm on Oct 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

I've never had a problem with Google heckling over a slashdot. The most recent time I had a CTR of about 2x normal and made about 2 week's my normal cash. They understand spikes :P

richmondsteve

2:52 am on Oct 30, 2003 (gmt 0)

Based on personal experience, I wouldn't be concerned. A site of mine running AdSense which normally had x pages and y visitors per day spiked to an average of 15x (6 figures) and 20y per day sustained over a 3 day period.

I didn't contact Google and didn't get warned or punished - it was legitimate traffic, mostly from search engines, due to news that broke and caught people's interest.

Whether your spike is from Slashdot, another high-traffic site or dozens of blogs I would not be concerned. YMMV.