Why do I get lots of traffic from a bizarre keyword?
-
Bit of an odd one but I've been getting a large and steady stream of traffic over the last few months from a very random keyword that according to addwords figures shows "on data". Its our second biggest referring term only beaten by our brand name. We get more traffic from this term than keywords we have invested a lot of time in that show thousands of traffic volume in addwords. When looking at behavioral data its gets odder, a bounce rate of 98.11% time on site 2 seconds and page visits 1.02. So this traffic isn't real traffic and it's not real people. So my questions are, what is it? why do we get this random traffic, has anyone els noticed things like this and is it a problem?
I presume it must be something to do with some sort of spam but apart from that i'm stumped.
It's just one of those things that has been bugging me so I would appreciate any help.
Kind Regards
Paul
-
Paul,
- Have you linked the AdWords account to the GA account?
- Have you enabled Import Cost Data in AdWords?
- Make sure that query string parameters remain in the URL bar when you visit your destination URL.
- Have you tested to see if your GA cookies reset when visiting your 2nd or 3rd pages?
Adrian Vender
-
yeah I had just used the SEOmoz keyword difficulty tool that pulls in data from the google search based tool and it shows "no data" across the board.
-
If you show up on the image results thats most likely your problem! Use the google keyword tool to see how much traffic that keyword gets
-
Sorry i should have mentioned in my first post that we do rank second for the term. But the term is so bizarre that I can not believe the traffic is real and also the bounce rate, time on site and so on are extremely abnormal. We do also show up in the image results.
-
easiest way to find out if this is the cause: find out what term the traffic is coming in from and type it into your search engine. I spent ages wonderig why I was getting all this traffic from obscure terms like 'pound sign' and 'stephen hawkings' until I realised I was ranking first for them in Google UK Image search
-
Yeah good point. The traffic for the term only comes from google.co.uk. Yahoo and Bing dont refer the keyword at all.
-
Anyway to dig in to see what search engine those referring keywords come from? Like craven22 said, it might be an image search.
-
Thanks. Hmmm maybe. How would you find out if someone was hotlinking to an image?
-
Thanks Steve, We are just using Google analytics .
-
Are you sure you aren't ranking high up for a popular image search in google? Most likely people searching for something then hotlinking your image
-
Sounds like a bot or scraper to me. That's strange because usually bots/scrapers don't execute javascript which is needed to show up in Google Analytics. What analytics package do you use?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Measure traffic from serp feature
Hey 🙂 Does anyone know if there's a way of measuring traffic coming through serp features? I know that you can get some info on SEMrush but not traffic coming from those specific results like stories and instant answers. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Anna_90 -
Direct Traffic has Drastically Increased
Hi, I have noticed in Google analytics that direct traffic of one of my website is increased drastically. I didn't participate in Email Marketing or any other paid campaigns however direct traffic is continuously increasing. I checked all sources, locations, browsers, filters etc but didn't get any findings. Please help.
Reporting & Analytics | | RuchiPardal0 -
Does "not provided" affect the referral traffic data?
There is a discrepancy between what an referring site is showing as clicks back to my site versus what Google Analytics is showing. For example - They are stating that their site sent 100 clicks to my site. The GA data shows 25 referred clicks from that site. Could this be due to the "not provided" that hides most of the keyword data?
Reporting & Analytics | | devonkrusich0 -
Adwords start Organic traffic SIGNIFICANTLY drops
I hope someone can give me some insight here, or at least point me in the right direction. As of September 1 we are running Adwords. We are seeing an alarming drop in our organic traffic since then. It's almost like Adwords is cannibalizing organic. August/September Paid 116/847 Organic 648/178 We've looked at why the Organic could have dropped (penalties, site function issues, etc.) and have found nothing unusual. Can someone give me a reason why this might be happening, Why such a dramatic decrease just as adwords is started. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Britewave0 -
Site Crash Effect On Traffic
All, I manage a site that unfortunately crashed due to a server issue in late October for about 3 hours. Prior to the crash, traffic was the best it had ever been in the 3+ year history of the site. As you might expect, since the crash traffic has gone gradually down and is now about 15% off pre-crash numbers. I understand that when a site crashes, it disrupts the crawling process and can disrupt traffic (in my case rich snippets were thrown off for days) but would love to hear experiences any of you have had in similar situations. How much did traffic drop after a crash? When did it recover? Other thoughts? Thanks, John
Reporting & Analytics | | JSOC0 -
Big Traffic Drops in Bing
I have a client that has been struggling with their organic traffic the over the past several months. We figured they had been hit by Penguin and some of Google's other algo changes...But I just dug in a little deeper in Google Analytics, and their traffic is actually up year over year for Google organic, but they are down 75% + for both Bing and Yahoo organic. They drop seemed to occur around April, 2012, and they have rapidly lost Bing and Yahoo traffic ever since. Can anyone help explain why this might be happening? A Bing and Yahoo algo update? Or just fewer people using those search engines possibly? I'm not quite sure how to make up for all the lost traffic in Bing and Yahoo. Any suggestions are appreciated!
Reporting & Analytics | | BlueTent200 -
Should you get a new Google Analytics account if your site has a new domain after a site redesign/new development?
We recently developed a new site for a client and they have opted to move forward with a domain change. Should we create a new Google Analytics account for the new site?
Reporting & Analytics | | TheOceanAgency0 -
Any updates regarding 'not provided' organic keyword referrals in Google Analytics?
I know that the encrypted searches done by people logged into their Google accounts is causing the error, is there any workaround or any update from Google as to IF they will give us our keyword data back? I'm currently losing data on about 20% of my daily searches . . .
Reporting & Analytics | | nsauser0