Increase in Direct Traffic plus Bounce Rate rise for all traffic sources
-
Hello,
I work for an agency and we have seen a big rise in bounce rate for 4 of our clients which happened on the exact same day. This rise on bounce rate is across all traffic sources.
We are also seeing a big increase in direct traffic, starting on the same day. Is it possible for bot traffic to affect the bounce rate of all other traffic sources?
We have ruled out double reporting in GA but can explain how the bounce rate has increased for all traffic sources. How is this linked to the rise in direct traffic (in some cases as high as 500%)?
Thanks
-
@jenallen A sudden increase in bounce rate and direct traffic may indicate bot traffic affecting analytics. Bots visit websites, imitate human behavior, and inflate metrics. They generate traffic, simulate user sessions with one-page views, and have quick exits, causing a high bounce rate. Bots manipulate referral sources, making traffic appear direct. Bot traffic distorts overall analytics data, affecting metrics. To investigate and address the issue:
-
Filter known bot traffic: Use a tool to exclude bots from analytics for accurate data.
-
Analyze user engagement metrics: Check the time on page, pages per session, and conversion rates for anomalies.
-
IP analysis: Examine IP addresses to detect suspicious patterns suggesting bot activity.
-
Implement bot detection measures: Enhance website security with CAPTCHA, bot detection scripts, or IP blocking.
By taking these steps, you can understand and mitigate the impact of bot traffic on analytics data.
-
-
@jenallen Hi, I wouldn't worry too much if these traffic and bounce rate spikes are temporary, as there can be dozens of potential causes. However, in my own experience a possible explanation when bounce rate increases dramatically for all traffic channels while there is a huge increase in traffic, is that such a traffic spike causes an overload of the server, thus slowing the website or causing errors. Therefore, users leave the website before pages load, increasing bounce rate for everyone.
-
@jenallen we are also experiencing the same issue. It happened Feb 4. Our site had a spike of direct traffic.
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
-
Unsolved Landing pages report has no data even if I have ranking keywords and traffic
Is there any reason my landing page report does not include data for pages? I'm sure there is organic traffic on them, and I have tracked the correct keywords. Any similar insight will be helpful.
Moz Tools | | davidevans_seo0 -
Disabling Hubspot AMP plugin - impact on GA
Hello, all!
Reporting & Analytics | | SimpleSearch
What impact have you seen if you've used the Hubspot AMP plugin and then disabled it?
We saw a big jump in sessions, which is weird because GA was tracking AMP pages. I'm trying to wrap my head around why this is happening but my brain isn't working 🙂0 -
Since implementing GDPR, has anyone seen website traffic plummet?
On December 1 and 2, I implemented a cookie banner on 5 of my Wix sites (https://www.sanitationsolutionsinc.com is one example) in order to be in compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD. Since then my traffic according to Wix Analytics and Google Analytics has plummeted. Anyone else have the same issue? How did you fix it?
Reporting & Analytics | | Jason_Taylor0 -
Alternative tools for Keyword Traffic
Hi There, Wondering if anyone has any other tools they would recommend using for finding out keyword traffic on websites. Currently (and I'm sure like most), my website is connected to Google Analytics and Google Search Console. My biggest frustration becomes the "(not set)" variable that appears when I go to review the keywords section. It's always such a large number and I have no way of finding out what people might be typing in and coming across my website. Of course, I understand the privacy factor as to why Google must do this but it's certainly difficult to analyze what's working and what's not. Any tips, tricks or suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks, Lindsay
Reporting & Analytics | | MainstreamMktg0 -
Direct traffic spam on Google Analytics: how can you identify and filter it?
One of my smaller clients noticed a huge jump in direct traffic visits last month. The bounce rate was around 97% so I'm pretty certain that most of the traffic was illegitimate. I know how to filter out spam referrals and organic keywords in Google Analytics. However I'm not sure what to do about direct traffic spam. Are there recommendations for filtering this out? Can I identify spam IP addresses?
Reporting & Analytics | | RosemaryB0 -
Tips for migrating Google News traffic?
We are about to relaunch a site that gets a lot of Google News traffic. We are not changing domain, but the site structure is changing greatly, with the URLs of both news index pages and articles being shaken up. Obviously, we've 301-ed every page to its closest equivalent on the new site. We've also got a news sitemap. As we are not changing domain, is there anything further we need to do to help protect our Google News traffic. On a related note, does anyone have a relaible way of measuring traffic from Google News listings in universal search?
Reporting & Analytics | | Dennis-529610 -
Sudden increase in returning visitors
Hi, in the last couple of days I've seen the following changes in my analytics: about 35% increase in overall traffic(both organic and ppc) new visitors dropped about 20%(both organic and ppc) bounce rate increased in about 10%(both organic and ppc) I haven't done any changes to the analytics code nor any other big change to the website. I'm obviously pleased with the increase in traffic but worried about the fact that it is mostly from returning visitors. I just want to make sure that nothing went bad so I can catch this on time, any advice on what to look for would be great.Thanks, Asaf
Reporting & Analytics | | AsafY0
