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How to identify the source of unexpected surge in traffic?

by ramram

Hi all,

I have recently experienced an unexpected, significant surge in traffic to my website, lasting around one day.

I didn't publish anything myself that day (but have a few days earlier), the source seems to be a direct link, and there seems to be no new backlinks.

I'm guessing it might be some closed community or a newsletter and am really curious to find out what it was, any tips on what further steps I can take?

Thanks!

Avatar for user @ramram ramram
posted to Icon for group Growth
Growth
 on April 17, 2023
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  1. 2

    If your GA4 is saying it's direct traffic, and there's no referral path, it's probably from some kind of source that hides its HTML header referrers. Try to narrow it down using other dimensions. Is it mostly Mobile or Desktop? Is it from a specific country or region? On what pages are they landing? Are they engaged sessions, or users that bounced as soon as they visited your page?

    User Avatar gustavost
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    3 years ago
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    1. 1

      Thanks @gustavost, great tips :)!

      Already tried most of these and found no interesting significant stuff (distributed mostly similarly to my other traffic).
      The most interesting thing is that the visitors seemed to convert better than usual so I was guessing they came from a source that has a strong relation to my app (the reason I was so interested about that).

      I'm starting to think the only way to find out would be to try reach out and ask at some point.

      Avatar for user @ramram ramram
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      3 years ago
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      1. 2

        @ramram What's their entrance page? Is it distributed as well? I've seen this happen when the checkout page was on a subdomain, and the HTTP headers were getting erased once the users switched context (from main site to subdomain/checkout)

        User Avatar gustavost
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        3 years ago
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        1. 1

          Thanks @gustavost! Interesting input!

          The whole website is pretty simple, and their entrance page is the main page.
          It's a landing page for an app. No subdomains or checkout page, what I count as conversions is app user creations (that can only be assumed to be coming from the website but in that case it's a somewhat safe assumption).

          Avatar for user @ramram ramram
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          3 years ago
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  2. 1

    Don't you have logs? Or any basic analytical tool like GA?

    User Avatar Amaning
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    3 years ago
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    1. 1

      I do have analytics but for this it just says direct link.
      What kind of logs do you mean?

      Avatar for user @ramram ramram
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      3 years ago
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