Search impressions appear out of nowhere and then disappear

[imp_shakes]

Hi guys, mostly a lurker here but I found something strange and I wondered if anyone ever saw this. Search impressions for a keyword exploded (80 imps a day is big for this keyword and led to many conversions) out of nowhere and then went away almost as suddenly (after lasting for ~ six month period).

This is a four word keyword in the financial vertical that is not exactly linguistically going to just take off.

Here is a scrubbed screen cap of Google Insights. Note this is in California. I saw similar but not quite as dramatic in a few other states.

[imgur.com...]

Anybody else experience this/know anything about it? I don't understand how this could happen unless someone was linking to the search result page and sending traffic there.

[tedster]

Welcome to the forums!

Yes, this kind of thing happens a lot and on all different kinds of time frames, even throughout one single day. Makes it kind of weird to figure what Google is up to, doesn't it?

[imp_shakes]

It seems pretty fishy to me. Someone has to be linking directly to that SERP, but if you are saying it happens a lot...

The only thing I could think of was the content network - in that they would include "searchers" people who see and click on content network ads that are served for those keywords, and their placements vary over time. I wonder if there is any variation in the referrer, I should go check.

[enigma1]

It seems pretty fishy to me

Could be. One case that comes to mind, someone who controls even a small size botnet has enough power to shift the trends anyway he likes.

[imp_shakes]

It's not bots. Conversion on this particular keyword is excellent. It's quality traffic, and I think that's what makes this so disturbing.

[enigma1]

How can you be so certain? The conversion can be excellent regardless. Botnets include ordinary pc systems coming from different IPs add spyware to all this and can focus on a specific task. The conversion map won't be updated if the traffic proved to be non-legit afterwards isn't it?

Here is an example:
[benedelman.org...]

[imp_shakes]

I think your point makes a lot of sense however in this case conversion requires a credit card transaction along with a great deal of personal information required. This would be impossible to fake.

Also, during the time period of the increased impressions our overall sales went up correlatively. If this is a scam of some sort I wish they would keep scamming...

I should add we are using our proprietary analytics system, conversions are verified transactions. It's hard for me to get into the details with revealing the industry but you'll have to trust me there is no way to fake a conversion in this vertical.