Daily Manual Visits From Google

[Jez123]

Is anyone else getting manual visits from Google? Not just from .com but from .co.uk (I'm in UK). I wonder if it is something to do with this [webmasterworld.com ] as I did fill out the survey and these last few days I have been getting daily visits. My site has since recovered from Penguin and it's now less applicable but interesting all the same. Unless it's something to do with Penguin itself? Monitoring my site for some reason?

[Simsi]

Yes. Just noticed this this evening. From Mountain view, via Google.co.uk using the domain name +keyword.

[nettulf]

Yes - also from Mountan View, via unencrypted search and IE7. Keyword is just the site name. One visit every day. Strange.

[Simsi]

...on Win XP. THAT is how bad Vista was!

[ohno]

Are you seeing manual page views or just a Google ip hit? I had 3 min visits last year by memory then we tanked! Vista. Hmm. worse than serps 2013....

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Hah, on windows xp here too with a monitor that is reporting 10,000 pixel height (I want one). My traffic is up 10% since.

Perhaps they are training a new bunch of 'manual raters' locally?

[Panthro]

There's no way it's a manual visit. I've been seeing this for months. I believe it has something to do with pages posted on Google Plus. Google used to visit after a page was posted to Google Plus in a way that looked very similar. Then I started seeing this modified behavior.

Google Web Preview also keeps showing up from MY IP for a while now. Weird stuff, I do not understand the Web Preview thing.

[JD_Toims]

Weird stuff, I do not understand the Web Preview thing.

The G web preview sends an X-Forwarded-For header. A good stat program will pick it up and show the IP Address of Google's visitor as the actual viewer of the page rather than the Google IP that's making the request on their behalf. Technically, you should show as the visitor, so your stat program is giving you the correct information and Google is making the request on behalf of their visitor, so their user-agent showing is correct also.

[Panthro]

Interesting, thanks for the info! So I guess that makes sense that the visit keeps showing up as from an old IP of mine.

[atlantic87]

I have had this for the past 2 weeks or so. At first the visits were for a main keyword (and StatCounter reported that the SERP position was #1 -- even though I usually rank on page 2 for that keyword), but for the past week the keyword has just been my site's URL.

The visits are always just of the homepage, and are always around the same time, 11:00 pm. Very strange.

[Jez123]

I can't tell if my traffic is affected as I just gained a lot of traffic back from the Penguin update. I meant to say though, as atlantic87 said, the positions that whoever it is at google is checking are significantly better than I see them. For my main phrase I am #12 and my stats report the googler at #2. Maybe just their personalisation?

I am not just seeing this for 1 keyword there is at least 1 more that is regularly hit as well.

[diberry]

Jez123, I've been seeing this for a while now, and JD Toims' explanation is the same as I found at a few blogs (although much more detailed, thanks, JD). I don't think it affects traffic from the Google SERPs in any way that I can tell, but it's another traffic source to enjoy.