I was linked to.CTR is now minuscule

Will it improve?

[jikel morten]

So I've got a pretty small site that was linked to by a couple of very popular blogs, much to my amazement and delight. These links delivered a 10x increase in traffic, and because the digerati tend not to be clickers, my CTR plummeted. I'm still receiving a couple more clicks (and dollars) than usual (no record highs though), which is great, but I'm curious as to what I can expect in the future now that my site is being linked to by more sites than ever. What I'm asking is if anyone has experienced what I've described and subsequently had a slow but steady earnings growth due to sites linking to sites that are outside of the webhead crowd, and if this will bring more traffic in some way from the same people that have previously found my site while looking for a particular product that I've featured. I guess what I'm really asking is if exposure to many non-clickers eventually leads to higher exposure to the clickers, if you will.

I'm curious to see the opinion WebmasterWorld in general and anyone who's experienced anything similar to what I've described.
Thanks.

[leadegroot]

Yes, it should.
You have now gained a couple of 'backlinks'. This will improve your page rank and improve your rankings in the SERPs.
You will also get some residual traffic from the links.
Both of these types of visitors are more likely to be clickers.

But, as with everything, there are no guarantees :(

[jikel morten]

Thanks leadegroot, I appreciate it - and yeah, very true regarding the lack of guarantees in this business.

[ken_b]

My experience has been that traffic from those kind of links fades off fairly fast. But it's possible that someone following the link will post a more durable link from their own site(s). That's always nice and those links tend to send traffic on a more consistent level over the long term.

[jikel morten]

Thanks Ken. Fortunately I was linked to in the sidebar of one of the sites, which should stick around for a while. I am, however, seeing the peak and subsequent decline, as you've mentioned.

[FrostyMug]

when i was linked from fark.com, my traffic skyrocketed, but i also experienced a low rise in income, mostly because these are professionals serfing the web in the office ( i presume ). anyway, unless you got a permanent link, this traffic quickly fades.

[jikel morten]

FrostyMug, after the initial traffic surge died, did you experience a sustained improvement in earnings or did your earning fall back to pre fark levels? Thanks

[linear]

In my case, getting slashdotted produced intense surges of impressions without proportional clicks. But then a sort of "Second wave" of sites picked up the link, which provided a shorter but wider peak. The second wave was still not anywhere close to usual CTR. But a lot of personal sites and blogs placed links as a result, and the traffic from those is pretty typical--not high-volume, but close to nominal CTR. In the long term, that triffic is pretty much incremental, but the IBL benefit is nice.

This last time I got slashdotted, I just 403ed the article in question for about a day (so my other pages could be seen) and let the above scenario play out after I dropped off the front page. Digg and delicious were the bulk of the second wave, then individual bloggers for the third. If you are blog-friendly you can possibly make the most out of that third wave (acknowledge the link, participate in discussion, trackback, etc.)

[jikel morten]

Thanks linear, everyone.

[paul2yall]

Same thing happened to me two weekends ago, two days after launching a new site... a surprise Digg led to backlinks from Engaget, Lifehacker, and a hundred other sites. I had a couple days of intense traffic, followed by two days of high traffic, and now it's a roller-coaster as new sites pick up the story every few days. Unfortunately, because my site was so new, the ads weren't well targeted during the first high traffic days, so I didn't earn a whole lot from Adsense. Now that my ads are better, I'm earning more today with with 10% of the traffic. Those backlinks will pay off for a long time to come, as anyone searching my keywords will come across a site that's linked to mine.

Sounds like you're in the same boat. Take advantage of the exposure and use it to build an audience of your own.

[danimal]

it would be interesting to know how epc is affected by these big surges in untargeted(?) traffic.