undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Spike then Drop in Direct Traffic?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Spike then Drop in Direct Traffic?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
10
2.3k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • HB17
    HB17 last edited by May 14, 2015, 4:49 AM

    We've been doing some SEO work over the last few weeks and earlier this week we saw a large spike in traffic. Yay we all thought, but then yesterday the traffic levels returned to pre-celebratory levels.

    I've been doing some digging to try and find out what was different Monday and Tuesday this week. Mondays are usually big traffic days for us anyway, but this week was by far the biggest, and Tuesday was even higher still, our best day ever.

    After some poking, I found that the direct traffic followed the same pattern as our overall traffic levels (image attached). The first spike coincides with an email we sent out that day, but the later spike we just don't know where it came from?

    I understand loosely that direct isn't easily traceable, but can anyone help us understand more about this second spike?

    Thanks!

    ayqL2wi

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Carloseo
      Carloseo last edited by May 24, 2015, 9:48 PM May 24, 2015, 9:47 PM

      You might want to check if you have spam in your reports, especially this referral free-social-buttons. This referral spam hits with direct visit along with the referral part.

      The problem of this spam over others is that even if you filter the referral you will keep getting the fake direct visits, but luckily there is a solution, if you check the hostname that these direct visits use you will see that is not set or it's fake as any Ghost Spam in Google Analytic, so they way to stop this type of spam in any form(referral, keyword or direct) is to create a valid hostname filter that will only allow valid traffic. You can check full details of this issue in this article:

      http://www.ohow.co/unusual-increase-in-direct-traffic-on-ga-spam/

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • HB17
        HB17 @KyleEaves last edited by May 18, 2015, 11:42 AM May 18, 2015, 11:42 AM

        Hi Kyle,

        Thanks for responding.

        We found it was from Miami after some digging around in Analytics and sorting by location.

        No drop in traffic organically, just our usual organic combined with direct gives us a huge spike, but direct from Miami isn't much use for us!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • KyleEaves
          Kyle Eaves @HB17 last edited by May 16, 2015, 2:27 PM May 16, 2015, 2:27 PM

          I seem to have the same issue on my site. I get a sudden influx of visitors within minutes all coming from direct traffic. How did you discover the traffic was from Miami? The only identifying factor I could find in GA was that the Network Domain for the traffic was 1e100.net. Not sure how sending direct traffic would benefit a spammer.

          Have you experienced an overall drop in traffic on days you get the huge spike in direct traffic? I feel like I do, maybe the high bounce rate is a problem and signal to Google?

          Would be nice to block the traffic but possibly just filter it from GA to avoid skewed data if it is not affecting your site.

          Kyle Eaves
          SEO Specialist
          KyleEaves.com

          HB17 1 Reply Last reply May 18, 2015, 11:42 AM Reply Quote 1
          • HB17
            HB17 last edited by May 14, 2015, 5:05 PM May 14, 2015, 5:05 PM

            Ok, so I've been doing some digging and I've found the cause, just not the answer.

            The additional traffic came in at 9am from Miami... Our website has nothing to do with Miami and 9am would be 3am local time.

            It still doesn't look like anything spammy but still, where can I go from here to find the cause of Miami traffic coming to our site?

            Thanks!

            KyleEaves 1 Reply Last reply May 16, 2015, 2:27 PM Reply Quote 0
            • ATP
              ATP last edited by May 14, 2015, 7:54 AM May 14, 2015, 7:54 AM

              With it being over a week since your email was sent I don't think the two events are related, the pattern we see from our emails see an initial spike and a much smaller spike the Monday of the following week due to out of offices etc.

              If your certain its direct traffic then I would be investigating further with analytics. The spike is at a time you normally experience spikes, is this coincidence or a pattern?

              In our marketing department we try to paint a picture of our direct traffic users.

              Which page are they landing on, what are they doing, where is the user located, are the visits resulting in more bookings/services being orders. Then consider external factors which may cause people to go looking more.

              For example, one company I work with here in the UK see a jump in direct traffic correlating with the end of the financial year and tax refunds.

              As SMG said, Behaviour and Acquisition tabs are your friend. Sorry its not more of an "answer" but direct traffic can be vague.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • HB17
                HB17 @ATP last edited by May 14, 2015, 7:13 AM May 14, 2015, 7:13 AM

                Thank you for your reply.

                Apologies, here's some more info:

                Our increase in traffic overall was much higher than normal, but in Analytics when we view just direct, this seems to be the cause of the additional traffic. Organic did not spike.

                It is a website for a car dealership containing many brands. The website is fairly large, around 1,000 pages with another 1,000 used cars which are fed in every morning with updates (cars sold, new cars added etc).

                Mondays are normally busy days as customers like to book test drives/services etc ready for the following weekend.

                Thank you.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ATP
                  ATP @HB17 last edited by May 14, 2015, 7:05 AM May 14, 2015, 7:05 AM

                  Harry, Could you provide a little more info/clarify a few things?

                  You stated that your direct traffic on the spike day followed the same overall pattern as a normal day etc... but you haven't clarified if the spike was all direct traffic.

                  Was this spike definitely direct traffic?

                  Also I think its beneficial for us to know (so we can look at factors that might influence direct traffic)
                  What Industry / Type of website is it?
                  Why  are Mondays normally big traffic days?

                  HB17 1 Reply Last reply May 14, 2015, 7:13 AM Reply Quote 1
                  • HB17
                    HB17 @DSM_UK last edited by May 14, 2015, 6:37 AM May 14, 2015, 6:37 AM

                    Thanks for your reply Jimmy.

                    We didn't send any emails out on our second spike, which is why we're confused.

                    The landing pages don't look any different from what we'd expect day-to-day - Nothing that really stands out.

                    Thanks

                    ATP 1 Reply Last reply May 14, 2015, 7:05 AM Reply Quote 0
                    • DSM_UK
                      DSM_UK last edited by May 14, 2015, 6:23 AM May 14, 2015, 6:23 AM

                      Hi there,

                      To get a better idea of your traffic you really need to dig into the Acquisition and Behaviour tabs in Google Analytics.
                      If you are saying it was a mystery spike in direct traffic, have you checked what the landing pages are? Google translates and the web archive can appear in direct traffic, but are distinguishable from their landing pages.

                      Did you check that traffic from your email was being reported correctly? Sometimes email can be seen as direct traffic if the email doesn't report the referral, so it is worth checking.

                      Hopefully this gives you a starting point for further investigation!

                      King Regards

                      Jimmy

                      HB17 1 Reply Last reply May 14, 2015, 6:37 AM Reply Quote 0
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • placementLabs

                        How can I stop spam Google Organic traffic?

                        Hey Moz, I'm a rather experienced SEO who just encountered a problem I have never faced. I am hoping to get some advice or be pointed in the right direction. I just started work for a new client. Really great client and website. Nicer than most design/content. They will need some rel canonical work but that is not the issue here. The traffic looked great at first glance 131k visits in April. Google Analytics Acquisition Overview showed 94% of the traffic as organic. When I dug deeper and looked at the organic source I saw that Google was 99.9% of it. Normal enough. Then I looked at the time on site and my jaw dropped. 118,454 Organic New Users for Google only stayed on the site for 3 seconds. There is no way that the traffic is real. It does not match what Google Webmaster tools, Moz, and Ahrefs are telling me. How do I stop a service that is sending fake organic Google traffic?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 6, 2016, 9:43 PM | placementLabs
                        0
                      • EcommerceSite

                        Why is my Bing traffic dropping?

                        In the middle of September we launched a redesigned version of our site. The urls all stayed the same. Since site launch traffic in Google has steadily increased but Bing traffic has dropped by about 50%. Any ideas on what I should look at?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 5, 2016, 4:08 PM | EcommerceSite
                        0
                      • infotrust2

                        My Domain authority dropped 9 points... Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this significant drop.

                        My domain authority dropped by 9 points and I haven't done anything differently since the last scan. What is going on?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 15, 2015, 4:55 PM | infotrust2
                        0
                      • damienthivolle

                        Subdomains vs directories on existing website with good search traffic

                        Hello everyone, I operate a website called Icy Veins (www.icy-veins.com), which gives gaming advice for World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, two titles from Blizzard Entertainment. Up until recently, we had articles for both games on the main subdomain (www.icy-veins.com), without a directory structure. The articles for World of Warcraft ended in -wow and those for Hearthstone ended in -hearthstone and that was it. We are planning to cover more games from Blizzard entertainment soon, so we hired a SEO consultant to figure out whether we should use directories (www.icy-veins.com/wow/, www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone/, etc.) or subdomains (www.icy-veins.com, wow.icy-veins.com, hearthstone.icy-veins.com). For a number of reason, the consultant was adamant that subdomains was the way to go. So, I implemented subdomains and I have 301-redirects from all the old URLs to the new ones, and after 2 weeks, the amount of search traffic we get has been slowly decreasing, as the new URLs were getting index. Now, we are getting about 20%-25% less search traffic. For example, the week before the subdomains went live we received 900,000 visits from search engines (11-17 May). This week, we only received 700,000 visits. All our new URLs are indexed, but they rank slightly lower than the old URLs used to, so I was wondering if this was something that was to be expected and that will improve in time or if I should just go for subdomains. Thank you in advance.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 4, 2014, 9:32 AM | damienthivolle
                        0
                      • Gordian

                        Drop in traffic after redesign

                        Is it common for a site to see slight traffic drops after a site redesign (containing cleaner code, more usability and basically just being more helpful for the end user)?  A new site of ours went live last Wednesday and has experienced a drop in traffic. If you have seen this in your own site, how did you recover? And how long did the recovery take?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 26, 2013, 5:46 PM | Gordian
                        0
                      • TextStylesUK

                        Page position dropped on Google

                        Hey Guys, My web designer has recommended this forum to use, the reason being: my google position has been dropped from page 1 to page 10 in the last week. The site is weloveschoolsigns.co.uk, but our main business site is textstyles.co.uk the school signs are a product of text styles. I have been told off my SEO company, that because I have changed the school logo to the text styles logo, Google have penalised me for it, and dropped us from page 1 for numerous keywords, to page 10 or more. They have also said that duplicate content within the school site  http://www.weloveschoolsigns.co.uk/school-signs-made-easy/ has also a contributed to the drop in positions. (this content is not on the textstyles site) Lastly they said, that having the same telephone number is a definate no no. They said that I have been penalised, because google see the above as trying to monopolise on the market. I don’t know if all this is true, as the SEO is way above my head, but they have quoted me £1250 to repair all the errors, when the site only cost £750. They have also mentioned that because of the above changes, the main text styles site will also be punished. Any thoughts on this matter would be much appreciated as I don't know whether to pay them to crack on, or accept the new positions. Either way I'm very confused. Thanks Thomas

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 17, 2013, 9:57 AM | TextStylesUK
                        0
                      • JakubH

                        Lost 86% of traffic after moving old static site to WordPress

                        I hired a company to convert an old static website www.rawfoodexplained.com with about 1200 pages of content to WordPress. Four days after launch it lost almost 90% of traffic. It was getting over 60,000 uniques while nobody touched the site for several years. It’s been 21 days since the WordPress launch. I read a lot of stuff prior to moving it (including Moz's case study) and I was expecting to lose in short term 30% of traffic max… I don’t understand what is wrong. The internal link structure is the same, every url is 301 to the same url only without[dot]html (ie www.rawfoodexplained.com/science.html is 301′s to http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/science/ ), it’s added to Google Webmaster tool and Google indexed the new pages… Any ideas what could be possible wrong? I do understand the website is not optimized (meta descriptions etc, but it wasn't before either) .... Do you think putting back the old site would recover the traffic? I would appreciate any thoughts Thank you

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 20, 2013, 12:01 PM | JakubH
                        0
                      • WaySEO

                        New Website Launch - Traffic Way Down

                        We launched a new website in June. Traffic plummeted after the launch, we crept back up for a couple of months, but now we are flat, nowhere near our pre-launch traffic or previous year's traffic. For the past 6 months our analytics have been worrying us - Overall traffic and new visitor traffic is down over 10%,  bounce rate is up almost 35% since site launched, keywords aren't ranking where they used to, and of course, web sales are down. Is this supposed to happen when a new site is launched, and how long does a new this transition last? We have done all the technical audits, adding relevant content, we're at a loss. Any suggestions where to look next to improve traffic to pre-launch numbers?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 8, 2012, 9:11 PM | WaySEO
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.