Getting prepared for a 'one-day' jump in traffic

What to do / What not to do?

[caspita]

Hi All,

I just put another message in the general forum for other kind of advice [webmasterworld.com...] you can drop some tips there also if you have any ;-) and I'll thank you a lot for that.

To make this short in case you don't want to read my other post here is what could happen to my site:

There is a big chance that my hobbie web site will get mentioned in an internet article for a radio station and the chance of a live interview broadcasting is very good also.

If this comes true, I'll be getting a very good (out of the pattern) amount of traffic on that day and a big chance of many nice/clean and unique clicks :-).

But of course, my concern is about how GG will look at this unexpected jump of impressions/clicks (I'm very possitive), and instead of a reward I could end up in the warning list or even worst .. be cancelled!

I'm planning to write AS support team in advance just to give them the heads up, but I'd like your opinion and advice too about what to do and what not to do.

Thanks a lot,
CS.

[John Carpenter]

As long as your traffic has valid and verifiable referers, you don't have to be worried. Google has access to your referers, so they know where your traffic is coming from and they can find out whether it's real or not.

Huge traffic spikes are actually quite common on the Internet. I'd be surprised if they had time to investigate every spike that AdSense publishers experience.

[Zygoot]

Indeed, I wouldn't worry about it.

I've had lots of traffic spikes and I don't bother to contact Google about it. It's just a waste of time for me and the AdSense support.

[europeforvisitors]

I'll echo Zygoot's comments. I've had several such spikes lately, and they haven't caused any problems.

[Gambrinus]

Don't worry about the spike itself, instead pay attention to what the visitors do when they get there. Are they clicking on ads, what areas of your site are they paying attention to, are they accessing and contributing to your forum... etc

Take note and learn from their use of your site as to what is most popular and usefully. Hopefully you'll be able to adapt and build upon those areas.

[OCSupertones]

Google has access to your referrers?

Says who? How do they see my referrers?

[jetteroheller]

Google has access to your referrers?
Says who? How do they see my referrers?

You have installed a little Javascript on Your site calling Google telling Your referers and much else.

[sailorjwd]

I vote for letting G know.

The benefit of advanced notice and CYA override the slight annoyance.

Other than that.. enjoy the ride!

[Critters]

one of my sites was in a UK broadsheet newspaper, a magazine for kids, a magazine for SEO's and was on many big Internet sites, got about 3 big spikes in traffic + earnings, did not say a word to G as I knew it was all random legal traffic and all was OK.

No harm in emailing them, but don't panic..

[kaz]

no need to notify google - spikes are not uncommon. enjoy it.

[Dantol]

Google has access to your referrers?
Says who? How do they see my referrers?

hahahahaha..... you are probably joking, aren't you?
Of course they see all your referers, their IP #s, computer configurations, even history of your browsing, etc. Even if you change your proxy, they will see your real IP... and here we go again, *lol*

[indias next no1]

last year, articles were published about my website on the leading websites, newspapers and magazines in our country and there was a sudden increase in traffic and impression, i just send google the URL of the articles published and i got a reply " Thanks for informing and keep inform us".

So , it is better just convey google about the happenings.

[jetteroheller]

My biggest traffic jump occured completely unexpected.

I did also not know for 2 days why the traffic increased., because last year was the 2 days delay for channel data.

After this, it turned out that an actress comitted suicide.

[europeforvisitors]

Traffic spikes can come from the strangest places. Being an unabashed liberal, I was surprised the other day to see a flurry of traffic from the NATIONAL REVIEW. (It turned out that the magazine had sponsored a cruise in Europe, and a NATIONAL REVIEW columnist who'd been on the cruise linked to my review of a restaurant in London.)

[caspita]

Thanks everyone for the advice, as I said, the chance of the article and the broadcasting is big, but not 100% sure :-). Anyway knowing in advance will let me to be prepeared.

Thanks again.
CS.

[trillianjedi]

I'm guessing here, but a large spike might possibly trigger a manual review of your sites (note plural, maybe all of them) by the AdSense team (I'm not sure how their fraud protection systems work, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's a series of flags for manual checkup).

I wouldn't worry about anything being invalidated, but with the possibility of a manual review, I would just double-check and make sure that nothing, on any of your sites displaying AdSense, contravenes the AdSense TOS.

TJ

[caspita]

Thanks trillianjedi,

I have made sure of that since the begining, thanks to all the advice in this forum and the Jenstar's posts every time a TOS update comes up I run my checklist to make sure that I'm doing it well.

CS.

[trillianjedi]

Well then I think you'll be just fine ;-)

Enjoy the traffic and the interview - good luck, I hope it comes off for you.

TJ

[kokaroach]

I wouldn't worry about the traffic spikes as long as they are legit. One of my sites has been Slashdotted twice in the past 3 months which brought in about 15,000 uniques in a few hours each time. Google responded by sending me a hefty adsense check each time ;-)

K