Why does Google give huge spikes in traffic?

[Jakez]

It wasn't a trending term or anything, just a site that kind of sat there for 2-3 years with 300-400 daily SE hits and suddenly one day Google decided to give it amazing rankings and it did 6,000+ for a day or two. Soon after it dropped to about 1,000 and slowly rose to about 4,000 where it has sat for 9-10 months. I guess they just want to test what the site does with a lot of traffic? Not sure.

[atom]

Ive seen this happen as well. Drives me nuts. As soon as I think i figure something out, Google goes ahead and changes everything I thought I knew.

fucking pricks.

[Adam_M]

Could be lots of things but a common pattern to get a sharp jump, pull back and slow build. Good news is that most times you won't see a sharp drop again in the short term if everything on the site is good.

[Jakez]

Originally Posted by atom

Ive seen this happen as well. Drives me nuts. As soon as I think i figure something out, Google goes ahead and changes everything I thought I knew.

fucking pricks.

One thing that really bugs me is that I will do a lot of updating or changes to a site at once hoping to improve it, and the SE traffic will drastically drop or rise, and I can't tell which change I did caused it. You really have to do small changes over time, but it's hard when you want to just add a bunch of things you're focused on at the time and get it over with.

[icymelon]

the sites linking to your site got some good inbound links

[Jakez]

Originally Posted by icymelon

the sites linking to your site got some good inbound links

Maybe, but it's so hard to find good link exchanges now. And for just a simple traffic exchange you have to find SOMEONE who doesn't have the 1999 TGP trade signup form closed to new trades. I probably get 200 uniques a day from traffic trades on this site TODAY, probably 50-100 when it didn't get much SE traffic.

[EddyTheDog]

Originally Posted by atom

....fucking pricks.

Quiet - It can hear you....

[GAMEFINEST]

Originally Posted by Jakez

It wasn't a trending term or anything, just a site that kind of sat there for 2-3 years with 300-400 daily SE hits and suddenly one day Google decided to give it amazing rankings and it did 6,000+ for a day or two. Soon after it dropped to about 1,000 and slowly rose to about 4,000 where it has sat for 9-10 months. I guess they just want to test what the site does with a lot of traffic? Not sure.

sent you an email

[anexsia]

Originally Posted by Jakez

One thing that really bugs me is that I will do a lot of updating or changes to a site at once hoping to improve it, and the SE traffic will drastically drop or rise, and I can't tell which change I did caused it. You really have to do small changes over time, but it's hard when you want to just add a bunch of things you're focused on at the time and get it over with.

I have this happen ALL the time...I just had a blog that was getting about 450 visitors from google daily and I added 2 posts to update it...traffic dropped down by HALF and has stayed that way for the past month

[FlowerKid]

The GOOGLE is an asshole most of the time.

[NinjaSteve]

Here's my theory.

You're aiming for a keyword or keyphrase however Google might think your content is spot on but it's about the end user too so it considers your inbound links, the visitor bounce rate from searches, and the impressions/clicks from searches and decides that your site isn't good enough quality. But once people start searching in Google, then clicking your link on page 3 or 10 or whatever, then if visitors start to stay on your site longer they decide your site is more relevant so they move you higher up. Once they do this... it's like a rinse and repeat because unless your site is awesome and users stay around longer and more relevant sites link to you.

If this theory doesn't work for you... then implement this

Originally Posted by FlowerKid

The GOOGLE is an asshole most of the time.

[Jakez]

Originally Posted by NinjaSteve

Here's my theory.

You're aiming for a keyword or keyphrase however Google might think your content is spot on but it's about the end user too so it considers your inbound links, the visitor bounce rate from searches, and the impressions/clicks from searches and decides that your site isn't good enough quality. But once people start searching in Google, then clicking your link on page 3 or 10 or whatever, then if visitors start to stay on your site longer they decide your site is more relevant so they move you higher up. Once they do this... it's like a rinse and repeat because unless your site is awesome and users stay around longer and more relevant sites link to you.

But that doesn't explain the sudden huge surge of traffic. It might explain why the traffic ramped up slowly afterward. Might.

[martinsc]

I'm not sure who is more difficult to understand my wife or google....