Sudden 500% increase in Search Traffic - suspect a fake

[seobloggerstips]

Hi,

I am first time posting my issue here, if it is in wrong forum then please guide me.

I have a niche blog. Usually I was getting around 100 visits daily from Google.

Now from 4th May 2013 onwards I have started getting 450+ visits from Google.

I haven't made any major change in my blog except I have set my Categories and tags as noindex around 2 weeks ago.

My blog is around two year old and I have changed it domain around 1 year back.

Some Analytics Details

All Traffic is coming from US

98% keywords are (Not Provided) so I am not able to find the keywords that may have get some good ranking in SERP.

All traffic is landing on my Home Page and then visiting 3-4 other pages.

Avg time per visit is arounf 30 sec.

Bounce Rate is 20%

.....................................

I have tried to check the pattern using my AwStat (CPanel) and I didn't find any unusual activity.

All bots and IP addresses are same as in the month of April 2013.

I have tried to check the IP address from stacounter and it seems ok to me.

But I have an intention that it is fake traffic but I am not able to find more about it.

I have never submitted my site to any traffic exchange network.

Can anybody suggest what is happening with my traffic?

[edited by: tedster at 11:28 am (utc) on May 8, 2013]

[goodroi]

What does Google Webmaster Tools say about your site? That may help you figure out which keyword(s) are bringing in more traffic or if this is fake traffic.

[seobloggerstips]

GWT is showing low click count as compare to Google Analytics

Few stats about traffic

1- around 450 visits daily from Google
2- All visits landing on my home page. after that they are moving to 2-3 other pages.
3- Avg time on site is around 40 second
4- Bounce rate is around 20%
5- All organic search belongs to 'not provided' keyword that means user is logged in while searching.
6- No specific IP.... all visits coming from different IPs.
7- 95% traffic is coming from US (rest from India, UK, Russia, Turkey, n other countries).
8- They are visiting my Category and tag pages after visiting my home page. Categories and Tags are not indexed in Google.

[chocolateseo]

I experienced something similar recently to one of my affiliate websites. It appeared to be from some agency/company in California running a bot against my site. Have you looked at the user details for the increased visits or compared the keyword queries in GWMT to traffic data in GA?

[seobloggerstips]

Yes, I have done the comparision

GA data is showing around 450 visit per day (from 4th may) from google but WMT is showing around 70 click daily only.....

I am confused....

Why someone will do this?

[seobloggerstips]

I have tried to check IP addressess.....
IP addresses that are repeating belongs to microsft corp (i checked it through whois).

I don't want to block these IP as it may belong to bing bot.

I am really in a odd situation..... My blog is getting huge google traffic but i m stressed.

Will it affect my ranking (although all traffic is coming from google---- at least GA confirms it)

[chocolateseo]

You have to look at Unique Visitors versus Visits. It shouldn't negatively affect you as you are not doing anything to violate quality guidelines (hopefully).

[levo]

Could be BingPreview bot, check the user-agent.

[seobloggerstips]

For today

Total Visits - 531
UV - 520
Page Views - 1262
Page per visit - 2.38
Avg Time on site - 52 sec
Bounce Rate - 24%
New Visits - 93%

I am not involved in any black hat seo technique or buying backlink or traffic

[chocolateseo]

Where are the visits from (Geo location) and the source types (%)?

[seobloggerstips]

City - Hialeah 37% visits coming from here...


I was searching for it and found that many people are facing this issue...

It seems to be related with bingPreview

[chocolateseo]

Check out the other thread concerning the lovely bingPreview... It sounds problematic but nothing too worrisome. [webmasterworld.com...]