What accounts for a huge surge in organic traffic for a couple days?

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   NateB11posted 9 years ago

   On a different HP account, not this one, I experienced a major surge in organic traffic to one article, like a few thousand visits, for a few days. Then, the traffic dropped to essentially what it was before the surge, like a hundred visits, more or less. Keyword phrases that I knew it was ranking for have not changed. What accounts for a sudden surge in organic traffic followed by a significant drop down to its previous traffic?
   
   Two theories I have:
   
   1. It gained and lost rank in a keyword phrase that I'm not aware of.
   
   2. The subject got briefly very popular. Though I should say it is not some current events type subject matter in the article.

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      janderson99posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      What about Pinterest?

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         NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I guess that could bring organic traffic since pinterest posts get indexed.
         
         But I wonder if Analytics would show referral traffic from Pinterest. I don't think it was showing any.

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            janderson99posted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Pinterest traffic should be listed in 'traffic sources' for your sub account.

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               NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

               HP stats show no traffic from Pinterest. Analytics shows one visit from Pinterest the day after the surge to a different article. Both HP and GA show the traffic coming from Google.

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      calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Just vagaries of the search engines' indexing and ranking algorithms.

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         NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I think you're right about that.

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      Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Search Google news for the subject and see if there is a recent news entry for the subject of your Hub.  That sometimes explains a surge in traffic. Every time missiles land on the Golan Heights (like on Tuesday from Lebanon) traffic to my Hub on the Yom Kippur War increases.

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         NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         That's exactly where my mind went with it; I'm pretty sure the topic got popular for a brief period for some reason.

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   earnerposted 9 years ago

   Did you check the stats?  That will often show the sources, although increasingly not.  But you should check that first. 
   
   Go to the hub
   Click stats near the top
   Click on the tabs for day, week, month - which will show the largest traffic drivers.
   
   Maybe somebody in a forum, or on a social media site, linked to you.

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It was all organic. That's what's mystifying me. If it was from social media, I'd get it. I just checked Analytics again and it's showing that it's all organic the day of the surge.

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   colorfuloneposted 9 years ago

   It is possible that someone shared the link in a private Facebook group. It wouldn't show the source.

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   VirginiaLynneposted 9 years ago

   I've had this happen a few times and finally tracked down (by looking where the hits came from on the stats inside the hub, I think) that my Hub had been shared on a major sharing site--I forget the name.

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