What Causes Sudden Rise and Fall In SE Traffic?

10x normal amount of traffic and then stops

[ember]

We advertise with Bing and receive a bit of traffic from them. Then suddenly yesterday, out of the blue, the ppc traffic surged. It lasted about 24 hours and then petered out. Our logs show it all came from Yahoo search and one particular keyword search. It also showed that the keyword phrase was exactly the same three words, all capialized, for each search.

If it were content network traffic it would make sense. But what causes thousands of people to suddenly search on Yahoo for one particular, identical phrase?

[RhinoFish]

nothing.

[RhinoFish]

"But what causes thousands of people to suddenly search on Yahoo for one particular, identical phrase?"
nothing.

it's search partner shenanigans.

[ember]

What does that mean? Search engine partner shenanigans? I might think they weren't real people, but they all have separate IPs, are from the U.S. and many signed up for our newsletter, which requires a name and an email address.

[SteveWh]

Maybe try searching on Yahoo for that one exact phrase and see what turns up. Something new and popular?

All of them using the exact same capitalization is suspicious, but it could happen if many people were copying and pasting the phrase from an article, or if an article contained a link to a Yahoo search page, using those terms.

[ember]

I think it must be a link to the Yahoo page with the keyword typed in. Thanks. I hope it stays for awhile.

[RhinoFish]

"I hope it stays for awhile."

I'm guessing you'll change your mind later.

[ember]

I'm guessing you'll change your mind later.

You are very pessimistic and cryptic. Could you explain why I'll change my mind later?

[rustybrick]

Maybe they are testing integrating adCenter in more Yahoo properties?