Direct traffic coming to URLs with /rss_feedIP#
-
I'm doing a site audit for an organization that has a bunch of really messy old Drupal sites. In looking at their traffic, I see that a majority of it is coming to landing pages that look like this:
http://clientsdomain.com/rss_feed173.8.208.97 plus other IP addresses.
The bounce rate is 100% and time on site is less than a second. It looks like something that an RSS feed tool might use, but I've never seen something like it before. It creates its own landing page, hits the site, then appears to bounce. This is making their Analytics data look a whole lot worse than the site is actually doing, since the bounce rate is 100% on all that fake traffic.
I have some experience with Drupal, but I've never seen anything like this in Drupal or any other CMS.
Has anyone out there ever experienced something like this, where direct traffic comes to an rss feed landing page and bounces immediately?
-
Hi Natalie,
What's the RSS plugin that your client's site is using?
-
Hi again
My bad! Did you try checking your internal links or sitemap? A quick crawl with ScreamingFrog can help pinpoint any link issues.
Also did you check the hostname on those links? Does it come up as our domain? Just want to double check that it isn't referral.
Let me know! Good luck!
-
Thanks, Patrick! The strange thing is that this comes as direct traffic, not referral traffic. We've definitely experienced the referral spam phenomenon, but this is like nothing I've ever seen. I don't think it's spam, but I'm not sure how or why it's being created.
I'll filter the landing pages from Analytics, but we're mostly just curious where and why those URLs are being created / hit.
Thanks again.
-
Hi there
This happens time to time - what you can do is create a filter to eliminate this traffic from your GA reporting.
Here's a few great resources:
How to Stop Spam Bots from Ruining Your Analytics Referral Data
What to Do About Fake BS Surge of Google Analytics Visits Definitive Guide to Removing Referral SpamYou could also take the time to go through your backlinks and see if any of them are worth removing or disavowing. Since this is a RSS Feed, it won't be very easy at all, but this is a nice process to have in your back pocket if needed.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
How to configure multilingual site in google analytic? Currently showing in Referral Traffic why?
Hello All, Currently my Multilingual site is showing in referral traffic is it because I have not added hreflang tag on site? If yes and if I add the hreflang tag on all sites when where it will show in google analytic traffic from international sites? And what type of configuration required in analytic? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | pragnesh96390 -
What does 'Safari (in-app)' mean in Google Analytics browser traffic?
Hi, can anyone explain what 'Safari (in-app)' refers to in my browser sources? Also, it has a very high bounce rate - any ideas why?
Reporting & Analytics | | b4cab1 -
SEO Working GREAT! Although Keyword Rankings Only Directing to Home Page.
Since I've become a fellow MOZer I've seen an increase on my sites and proud to say that ALL of my clients have now accomplished 1st page rankings on at least 2 of their top 3 keywords. Yes, I am as stoked as them. Although I am a bit worried because as I rank keywords and test them on Google and engines alike all of our rankings direct to the homepage. I am essentially new to SEO. So as happy as I am to be doing something right I'm worried I'm losing the end user. By having them need to Search our site/menus/blog for the keywords/phrase that got them to us will turn most searchers away. They want the content now. What am I doing wrong? My pages are pretty specific so I never cared to use rel-canonical's...I dont have duplicate content, other than your typical footer/side bar consistent info. So I'm curious where I've gone wrong. Little history on my sites: I Use Joomla 2.5 & 3.x. I manage seo details through sh404seo. I've cleaned all duplicates I can up other than what these dynamic cms generate by just using one. I've done fairly well and all my pages rank A for moz's onpage grader for the keyword optimized around. Any help is appreciate, THANK YOU!
Reporting & Analytics | | Funk-Creative-Media0 -
Domain redirect for direct mail (source) tracking in Analytics?
We have a client that would like to do some direct mail marketing and the plan is to use a short/simple domain in the marketing materials, which redirects to the main site domain. By default this would show as a referral traffic source in Analytics, right? So any traffic that came through that redirect would be attributed to "shortdomain.com / referral"? Meaning I wouldn't need to do any sort of customized, advanced tracking set up to track conversions that I've already set up (ecomm and goals) and attribute them to this new source? Just double checking that I'm not overlooking something. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | VTDesignWorks0 -
Will 301 redirects (Same Domain) show as referral traffic in Analytics?
For an eCommerce site we have 301'd legacy product pages to new product pages. Is all that traffic going to show up as referral traffic from our own domain in Google Analytics? If so, is there any way to preserve original source/medium info or will all the source/medium info be our own domain since there is a 301 redirect?
Reporting & Analytics | | bozzie3111 -
Senuke and traffic generator program is a good idea?? I think i got some problems now.
First of all thanks for reading, especially if you are the one whose bright ideas will help me out:) I started using senuke xcr about 3 months ago, obviously at the beginning i didnt make much success(not like I do now). Later i bought that inferno thingy and it actually works. First 2 weeks didnt make much difference(although i could see some little but stable uprising) but after 4th week ended, the average impression and queries doubled up, 6th went up again, its like every week or two it jumps up and keeps it there. Also the actual traffic from keywords went up! When about the second week finished, i started using a traffic generator program, first it leveled out the impressions and seemed to help a bit. Lately i think it messed it all up, plus about 2 weeks ago there was 2-3 dayswhen i sent a bit more traffic than usual and around that time the average rising of impressions didnt happened, it might even went down. Now i stopped using traffic g. and everything stayed the same no improvement!! Anyone could help me? I need to get it moving up again! Also im still nowhere near the top as the keywords are competitive well at least for me. What do i do wrong and what should i do? Also what about traffic generator? ps is it safe or/and or allowed to write that? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Sugafree0 -
No Link Data Available for this URL appears often. Are my sites too small to show up?
I am on the trial until Mar 5, 2012. I seldom get the info I want. Is it because my sites are too narrow a niche? I don't seem to be getting the data I'd like from your service. I'm trying to like it, but when I keep getting messages like this, it makes it hard to justify: "No Link Data Available for this URL appears often" Sample sites that I am unable to get data. I especially would like to know how many backlinks exist for each site. I paid someone to help me with them and I'd like to verify their work.: http://costaricadentistreview.com/ http://costaricadentistreviews.com/ http://costaricadentalimplants.org Any suggestions? Thanx Kurt Gross
Reporting & Analytics | | kurtray0