Google sends test traffic ONLY

[1script]

I don't know if it's a correct term for this type of behavior but "test" is the only thing that comes to mind:

This one site of mine gets very little traffic from Google, almost nil. However, every 10 days they give me 10-20 impressions for a variety of terms (as evidenced by WMT->Your Site On The Web->Search Queries) and then 9 days nothing. Since CTR differs, I don't necessarily see these impression spikes realized in the actual traffic from Google but there are a few more visits on those days.

Anyone seen something like that? What may be the reason for such behavior? Trying if the site's still alive should not be the issue because the Gbot is there all the time (eating 500-1000 pages/day). Are they trying to keep CTR/bounce stats for the site "kinda" current? Or is thins just WMT quirk?

Thanks!

[tedster]

Test traffic sound like the right description - however what exactly they are testing is not clear. It may well be part of the tests that Shaddows calls Traffic Shaping [webmasterworld.com]

The other possibility is some kind of WMT reporting bug. If you also see the traffic in your own server logs, then the report is not a bug.

[BenFox]

Test to see if your average position changes on the days when you have impression spikes. If not it could just be that an increase in traffic volume means more people are clicking through to the third page (or wherever your site appears).

Traffic shaping sounds plausible enough to me as well.