Why do all traffic curves show a "saw tooth" pattern in Google Analytics
-
Greetings Mozzers
This sounds like a dumb question, but it's bothering me just the same and I would like to think what the fine community of SEO experts at MOZ thinks
I have taken a look at the traffic curve for about 20 different sites in very different industries (home improvement, wedding party supplies, pet feeding systems) and it seems to me that they all show a saw tooth pattern, more or less like the one below.
-
Also, the weekend patterns get further amplified if you turn ppc off for the weekend.
-
I see something similar; in my case it's because we get less traffic on weekends, so there is a weekly sawtooth. Do your dips correspond to weekends?
-
Hi Tom
Thanks for your answer. And yes, this jagged edge (saw tooth) pattern changes with the timescale. Sorry about the attachment, here it is again http://imgur.com/c9w4IkF
What i would really like to know is: does someone does NOT see this pattern in their daily traffic?. I would find it remarkable if everyone showed the saw tooth pattern, independent of industry.
Cheers
-
Hey there
Looks like you've left off the attachment there, but I can imagine what you mean.
Quick question - what time-scale are you using to view things in Google Analytics?
Have you tried changing the view to weekly or monthly? You can do this by clicking the buttons on the right-hand side of the dashboard, here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/SEm37Kt.png
I've found that this often gets rid of that jagged effect you're talking about and allows for smoother data lines, which can help you identify trend lines a bit more easily.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Diganosing Traffic Drop
With Spring Break and seasonality in play right now I'm curious about techniques for separating/diagnosing temporary drops in interest due to user behavior in a category from other things like drop in ranking or similar. How quickly can you tell these apart? Analytics will be delayed a few days for instance, other tools take time to update. What should we be looking for and when to say "ok, this too shall pass" as opposed to "did we make a bad site update" or something similar. Any tips?
Search Behavior | | GLStephenJ0 -
Google web master tool - stats
Hello everyone! I have 2 questions : 1. does anyone come across this behavior ? (image 1). In the last week Page crawled per day behavior was quite wild and it wasn't affect directly on Time spent downloading a page. 2. I'm getting site map warning for high response time (image 2) i have 29M pages so I aware that 4 warning for 4 pages is almost negligible but still ? Thanks to all helpers 8OkgXp7 q3txRAb q3txRAb
Search Behavior | | Roi_Bar1 -
Higher rankings, low traffic
Hello There, My question is the following: How come my rankings are much higher than when I started with the optimization process (1 year ago) but my organic traffic is lower compared to the previous year (it didn't increase at all)? NB - I haven’t received any penalization and the keywords I am targeting are definitively searched and are the most important for my company. Thanks a lot 🙂
Search Behavior | | Midleton0 -
& And + symbols - How does Google read these?
How does/can Google read the plus and ampersand symbols? For instance if I optimise a webpage for 'black & white football' and another page for 'black + white football' would there be any difference in ranking position? Does Google take notice of such symbols or will it only pick up on the keywords 'black white football'?
Search Behavior | | Adam_SEO_Learning0 -
SERP with no "www"
I have noticed that Google SERP without login is showing the domains without " www " - all of them. Have you seen this too? What does it mean for us?
Search Behavior | | Elchanan0 -
How do I get my report to show ranking for a location such as pittsburgh or columbus?
I am not interested in US ranking only Pittsburgh and Columbus as that's where my client's offices are located. Are there settings to help me view our rank on our areas? Thank you!!
Search Behavior | | IEInteractiveServices0 -
Google showing malware attack, how to remove ?
Someone just reported that our website was showing malware attack page on their browsers. We checked and saw a bad php code on the above of our index.php file. We removed it and made it clean. Still all the visitors are getting malware attack page. How to fix this ? Site is already clean.
Search Behavior | | qubesys0 -
Paid search impact on Organic Search traffic - Is it in the positive side or negative side?
Recently came across an article stating that Paid search may affect traffic through Organic search. Did anyone have similar experience?
Search Behavior | | gmk15670