Random website traffic

Our site is having some random times with very high traffic from various IP

[Belinda]

Hi there,

We're having trouble with some periods of very high traffic to our site. Not normally an issue I know, but it appears to be to the detrement of orders through our e-commerce site. Hits for the day are nearly 20 times higher than average and limited to just a couple of hours in the day.

The IP's vary from day to day as do the pages they hit, but for a while it appeared to be focused on forms on the site.

Does anybody have any ideas what might be causing this traffic?

Thanks,

Belinda

[bwnbwn]

Can you determine if it is search engine traffic or from other forums?

Does the traffic convert to sales, can you look to see the length of time spent on your site and other information that might lead you to believe this is real traffic and not a bot attack...

[Belinda]

I really don't think this is real traffic. It spends no time on the site and does not convert to sales - if anything we lose sales on that day.

If it is a bot attack from many different IP addresses how can we stop it?

Thanks,

Belinda