Why are there spikes visits on my Google Analytics report?
- Details
Recently there have been reports of sharp spikes in visits reported by Google Analytics, this is seen as spikes in the sessions/users/visits graph in your monthly analytics report. If you look at the "Visits and Pages/Visit by Source/Medium" section of your report you will probably see a listing for social-buttons.com/referral which attributes for a fair chunk of your visits.
This is spam referrer traffic, they have never actually visited your site at all, they have just found a loophole in the Google Analytics system, and have randomly selected your Google Analytics ID and fed it to Google to create visits which are then counted. The object being that you will wonder who has made all these visits, and go and visit their site. Sometimes the site will be legitimate and be attempting to sell their service, other times their site will contain a trojan or other harmful code - do not visit the site! Because these spam referrals are not actually visiting your site, there is no adverse affect on your Google ranking (high bounce rates, when they only visit your homepage and then leave again will hurt your rankings).
Hopefully Google will find a fix for this issue shortly, and be able to filter out this information rather than including it in your reports. Until then, just ignore those visits in your totals.
Latest News / Blog
- Things to consider before updating your site to Joomla 4
- Why do hackers bother hacking websites?
- How to grow your social media engagement
- Wordpress 5.5 - auto updates
- My Watchful Podcast
- Safety and Security While Video Conferencing with Zoom
- Increasing the exposure of your business
- Keyboard issue: Single quote being replaced by Accent character
- Telemarketers trying to sell you a keyword-rich domain name
- Email – latest technology & more space!
- Outlook 2018, where have the Advanced Settings gone?
- Tools to resize and optimise images for your website
- Stolen Domain Names
- How to 'Like' a Facebook page as your business
- Create a link for customers to write reviews
- Latest round of QLD Digital Grants opens soon
- Proximity to Searcher is the New #1 Local Search Ranking Factor
- The Importance of Keeping Software Up To Date
- Joomla 3.7 Coming Soon
- Mobile-first Indexing
- Run out of ideas for social media posts?
- Scammers - they are still at it!!
- Are you struggling to create interesting content for your website?
- How to Write Viral Headlines: New BuzzSumo Research
- Google to Boost mobile-friendly algorithim this May
- Claiming for personal vehicle usage for tax year 2015 onwards
- Get on Google 'My Business'
- Google Analytics Report - What is "beat with a shovel the weak google spots" keyword?
- What is NAP Consistency? And why is it good for SEO?
- More .au options for all Australians or not – the pointy end of the naming panel process
- How to Know When Your Startup or Business is Ready for Facebook Ads
- Why are there spikes visits on my Google Analytics report?
- Generate more traffic with good quality blog content
- How to provide a direct link to your Google+ review box
- Content Quality Score: Google’s Best Kept Secret For Rankings
- Marketing your website content across the digital market
- Are you resisting Google+ ?
- How Google Search Works
- Facebook site ownership when buying a business
- Using Pinterest for your Business
- Can I rely on my Registered Business Name alone to register a com.au or net.au domain name?
- How to create a business listing on Google Maps
- What format of logo should you use in Word?
- What is Google Pagerank?
- Google Analytics keywords report says "not provided"
- 5 Tricks to Improve Your Google Maps Listing & Ranking
- SEO backlinks for your website
- Internet keyword scam
- Google Maps
- SEO basics for your website