Google ZOMBIE Traffic Observations

[samwest]

Mods Note: Split out of the October 2015 Monthly Observation thread into a separate Zombie Traffic Thread
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Sunday morning, usually banging away, but nothing but slow moving Zombie traffic, one or two at a time and sitting on the same pages for several minutes. Switch is currently OFF.
Still in decline. No sign of any seasonal upswing, which is way overdue.

[edited by: aakk9999 at 7:08 pm (utc) on Oct 19, 2015]

[WhiteHatTryHard]

"Yesterday amazing - today horrible - never had these ups and downs until very recently"

Same.

Is Google trying to control wealth distribution online by channeling converting visitors?

They certainly would have enough data to tell people that spend money from people that don't.

And that's also why I want the government to step into this web monopoly. - I dont want anyone to be powerful enough for me to have to ask these questions. Google has basically the power to shape and social engineer the web as they please, distribute money, change public opinion. Even just giving a certain kind of youtube video a slight ranking boost can change our society.

That is the world we live in now and it scares me.

And the worst thing: This algorithm that in many ways controls the information we get and how money (converting visits) are distributed, is a secret. - So theoretically they could derank all pages about subject X and noone could prove anything.

And what I can tell you from experience is this:
If you give someone power to manipulate others to benefit himself, chances are he will do it. - Almost every single time.

[Some_Bloke]

Having the same problems - long spells of no activity then what does arrive is totally irrelevant.

Glakes: Is it just me or are the good days few and further between?
I'm seeing that too. It's been over a week now since I had a good day.

I don't know if this in any way relates to the zombie experience but yesterday during a very quiet spell, I visited a few pages on my site and checked it live on GA. I was surprised to find it had my location wrong by over 200 miles. I've never seen that before and it's still the same today. Unless it's an issue with my isp, could google be having problems with geo location?

[Simon_H]

Any chance people could provide more detail when they say a 'bad' day vs a 'good' day? Perhaps you could advise if your traffic is purely from organic, or if you also use Shopping and/or search ads? And if there are differences in conversion rates between each source and if this also applies to Bing?

We've actually had some excellent days through Google Shopping, whereas organic conversions are almost non-existant despite organic traffic being high.

[Some_Bloke]

Simon
In my case it's purely organic.

[ecommerceprofit]

Both shopping and organic -...same traffic - conversions way down. Good days are become less and less. I wish I could comment on what WhiteHatTryHard + said but we should listen to moderator so the thread is not locked. This information from other webmasters is quite useful...just the facts from here on out I say. We all believe the same thing but all we now need are facts. One thing I also noticed...out of the huge Internet with many places that cater to webmasters, etc. I see little talk about this problem.

[FishingDad]

This whole thread is vague at best.

Location in the world?
Type of business/website url? (no ones giving that out)
Pay per click or SERP?

I see no violent changes for us in the UK SERPS Ecom, if any things are going up.

Zombie traffic? what's that, users just not buying? If its from the SERPS, so what, its not costing you, why get your knickers in a twist about Google?.

If its from Pay per click, then this is the bed your in, did you seriously think you would never be scammed? The whole PPC is a racket, no matter who's running it.

[jambam]

"And the worst thing: This algorithm that in many ways controls the information we get and how money (converting visits) are distributed, is a secret. - So theoretically they could derank all pages about subject X and noone could prove anything. "

@whitehattryhard A few months back google released a science paper on ranking sites based on facts.... google approved facts now that really is scary!

[Simon_H]

@ecommerceprofit Definitely. Let's follow the rules of the forum and keep to the facts. The constant Google-bashing and conspiracy theories are unconstructive and unhelpful and result in people like @fishingdad quite understandably not taking any of this seriously. This phenomenon is happening only to a minority of sites, so we need to focus on finding what we have in common and then eliminating it.

[No5needinput]

Location in the world?
Type of business/website url? (no ones giving that out)

------------------------------

It would be handy if this forum allowed members general location and business type in left column...

[mrengine]

Yesterday was a wash with Google. All organic (paid is off because zombies seem to click and don't buy) with low number of pages viewed, high bounce rate and no conversions. Traffic volume from Google is steady though, just the type of visitor they are sending seems to have no intent to buy. I think the last day I posted was on Monday, and I have not seen a good day from Google since last week. This corresponds with what others are experiencing. A good day for me is defined by total sales.

[edited by: aakk9999 at 1:44 pm (utc) on Oct 29, 2015]

[isellstuff]

My sales yesterday were kindof bad too. Have you all looked at how traffic from all your traffic sources is performing? I'll give you my traffic source breakdown... All bad, except for Bing natural which was mediocre.

YOY I'm trending a little worse than 2014, which has been the case for a couple of months. I absolutely had an hour or two without sales yesterday, which is a bit unusual, but it was no sales from all traffic sources.

[edited by: isellstuff at 1:31 pm (utc) on Oct 29, 2015]

[aakk9999]

Mods note: For Google business model discussion please use Google Business [webmasterworld.com] forum.

Feel free to add to posts in this thread:
- location
- type of business
- niche operated
- monthly traffic levels (approx. range of monthly uniques)

However, please do not post your website URLs.

[Jez123]

My own experience with this was very slow last week and part of the week before that. Since then, this week has been amazing. Seasonally I would expect a bit of a slowdown in October but not like that. The lights have very much come back on for me. Of course, coincidence may just play a part. Business can very much be like that I find.

[samwest]

Not complaining, but again this morning a 7 am sale within 5 minutes of yesterday's 7 am sale...then zip all day. It's as if they are doing some kind of data set switch or refresh at about 7 am. Then, it will switch to another time of day, and run consecutive for a day or two. Weird, unnatural patterns continue..

[heisje]

This phenomenon is happening only to a minority of sites.

@Simon_H : Any data evidence on this profound observation?

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[reseller]

Dear folks

In addition to posting observations we need to do more analysis and draw few conclusions. Otherwise this thread will end up as The Holy Temple Of Google Zombie Traffic where webmasters tell each other Zombie war stories, and maybe pray together and ask almighty Google for forgiveness and converting traffic :)

[edited by: reseller at 5:54 pm (utc) on Oct 29, 2015]

[Simon_H]

@heisje Fair point! Do you mean this may be happening to the majority of sites on the web? I would have thought that more people would be complaining about this if that were the case.

[heisje]

@Simon_H : too early to say, either way : perceptions are not a good substitute for facts.

.

[jambam]

What I know is that I get more a lot traffic from links on other sites than I do from google now.... and I don't care if these links are against google guidelines.... who cares.

[Simon_H]

@heisje Around 10 - 15 site owners have reported the zombie phenomenon. That is all, despite this thread being popularised on SER. Others have posted on this forum and on SER to say they don't see this or even believe it's real. Those are the facts. It's fair to assume that more than 15 sites in total may be experiencing this, but any suggestion that this is hitting hundreds of millions of websites without any of them mentioning it is very far fetched. Hence my point that we need to work out how to move our sites into the bucket of sites not experiencing this.

[EditorialGuy]

Our main site is an information site, not an e-commerce site, but it does earn quite a bit of money from affiliate links. I haven't noticed any zombie traffic--quite the opposite, in fact, which is a bit of a surprise during what normally is our slowest season for affiliate sales.

[heisje]

@EditorialGuy : Any site data on desktop / mobile traffic spit? Is site mobile friendly as determined by G?

.

[ecommerceprofit]

Site doing well today...conversions are good. I will report regularly on up/down days...enjoy reports from others... Simon_H - good to see you are doing well...you are lucky...

[heisje]

Checked 3-month and 7-day EPC for over 200 random merchants on CJ : Perception from real data derived from the activity of thousands of affiliated sites : business as usual at CJ - no reliable signal of any zombie-related issue.

.

[edited by: heisje at 8:42 pm (utc) on Oct 29, 2015]

[Robert Charlton]

What I know is that I get more a lot traffic from links on other sites than I do from google now.... and I don't care if these links are against google guidelines.... who cares.

Google only is concerned about arranged links that pass link juice and might artificially boost rankings, which means that your competitors might care as well, because it puts them at a disadvantage.

If those links are nofollowed, then Google doesn't care about them.

So... if these links are just for traffic, then make sure that they don't pass PageRank, and you won't be risking a penalty which definitely will hurt your rankings. IMO, that's the best of both worlds.

[aristotle]

I noticed that some members talk about sites with one or two sales per hour, or even one or two sales per day, as the historical norm. In cases like this, you should expect a lot of ups and downs simply due to random statistical fluctuations.

[Shepherd]

business as usual at CJ - no reliable signal of any zombie-related issue.

That's interesting, I wonder if site speed has any affect on affiliate link click rate? There's been several studies on how site speed affects ecom conversion rates.

one or two sales per hour, or even one or two sales per day, as the historical norm. In cases like this, you should expect a lot of ups and downs simply due to random statistical fluctuations.

Very true Aristotle. We may be a bit of an anomaly to the discussion but we have 100's of sales a day.

[heisje]

@Shepherd : lightning speed & zombie traffic here.

.

[Simon_H]

Same here as @Shepherd on sales and @heisje on speed. Our pages are ~ 90% on pagespeed insights. Also, we monitor cart adds and the effect is very pronounced there too, i.e. minimal cart adds on zombie days despite high organic traffic. So this isn't a case of basket abandonment varying per day. It really is a case of weird non-converting traffic.

@heisje Really interesting with the CJ stuff. Does your site have Panda/Penguin/quality issues or an exact match keyword/short/verb domain name? Really struggling to see what we all have in common here...

[reseller]

@Simon_H

Lets do some simple math.

Others have posted on this forum and on SER to say they don't see this or even believe it's real.

Do you have the total number of site owners who have posted on this thread to say they don't see Google Zombie Traffic or even believe its real? once you have the said total number, we would be able to compare:

Number of sites which are affected by Google Zombie Traffic Vs. Number of sites which are not affected by Google Zombie Traffic

Keeping in mind that you have assumed that more than 15 sites in total may be experiencing Google Zombie Traffic.

It's fair to assume that more than 15 sites in total may be experiencing this,

[edited by: reseller at 10:19 pm (utc) on Oct 29, 2015]