Unexpected Traffic Spikes

I check my blog traffic stats almost daily.  This a good way to keep up to date with my blogs but it is also an excellent way to catch any problems before they become problems.  In order to analyze abnormal traffic it is important for you to know your normal traffic patterns and average daily traffic.  For example I know that Thursdays are typically lower traffic days.  I've had 3 abnormal traffic spikes in 2 of my blogs over the last couple of months.  Here's how they played out:

• cooking blog spike 1 - My normal daily traffic for my cooking blog averages about 330.  One day it reached 720!  So I checked it out and apparently my blog was featured on a site that sent a lot of traffic my way so that was a very pleasant surprise.
• homemaking blog spike - My normal daily traffic for my homemaking blog is about 50 visits per day.  One day I noticed it was up to 130 mid afternoon so decided to check out why.  Apparently another blogger decided to lift one of my images quite contrary to my copyright notice but in return they did give me a link.  I did request the blogger to remove my image despite the nice traffic increase.  This brings up the issue that if you are going to fight copyright infringement you have to fight it consistently even if there is a small benefit to you as a result of the copyright infringement.
• cooking blog spike 2 - A couple of days ago I checked my cooking blog stats at 9:30 AM.  I just about fell off my chair when it said 220 visits!  As I said my cooking blog averages about 330 visits per day.  I immediately started checking through the logs.  There was absolutely no reason for such a jump in traffic - no abnormal referring urls, no anything to indicate why my traffic jumped.  The only thing I noticed was a bit more search engine traffic but even that wasn't abnormally high.  I watched as the number of visits climbed to 418 by 7:00 PM with still no indication as to why the traffic jumped.

In the first spike the traffic could be explained through a transient gain through a website.  The second traffic spike was explained by a link on a website that never should have been.  In short this spike warned of a problem that needed acting on.  The third spike is the most welcomed spike of all.  It appears the spike is from increased search engine traffic.  Hopefully this is a sign of a good traffic increase to my cooking blog.  I will be keeping a close eye on the stats to see what happens.

Garden Gnome
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