Huge increase in traffic on private site
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Hi
My site visibility is set to private. I only have 30 subscribers of people I know.
For the past month, once a week I get several hundred views showing in my site stats. No clue how this is happening.
WP.com: Yes
Jetpack: No
Correct account: YesThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to moderators and staff)
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Hi @bertieandme (it’s a funny avatar),
If your site is set to private, only invited readers can view it (it won’t show up in Google or be open to the public). So, seeing hundreds of views is unusual. Most of the time this comes from email/app notifications or feed readers checking posts, and sometimes stats are processed in batches which makes it look like a sudden spike. If it still looks off, the best step is to contact WordPress.com support so they can check the logs.
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Hi @bertieandme
I checked your stats, and I can confirm that all your stats are organic, meaning not from random site visits such as bots. You can verify this from the Referrers section of the Stats page: https://wordpress.com/support/stats/understand-traffic-sources/
Also, your site is a treasure trove of information, and your subscribers might be frequently referencing your blog posts to family and friends. This will increase traffic stats, especially if they use a new device for each visit.
Lastly, I see that you have more than 30 subscribers. I could not share the exact number here for your privacy, but you can visit your Subscribers dashboard to view your total subscribers.
Let me know if you have other questions.
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Thanks for the replies.
The site for several years was public. I had thousands of subscribers. Then I was doxed online (had to involve the police) and was advised to make the site private. My existing subscribers then had to be permitted by me to be allowed access and I think I only allowed about 45.
For years now I’ve had about 10 site views a day from a handful of visitors, if that.
Then suddenly a month ago I started receiving several hundred views in a day, yet only by 2 visitors. It makes zero sense.
There is something very strange going on and as the site contains a lot of personal information and I’m vulnerable as I’m disabled I need to know what exactly is happening. -
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WordPress;com logs the logins per allowed visitor. So If those visits are coming from only 2 visitors, I would say the security breach is coming from them because of hacking, spyware, … on their end allowing other people to use their login credentials.
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Thanks for taking the time to reply, but I’m not convinced with the reason.
I’m sometimes getting up to 30 visitors in one day and hundreds of page views. This is abnormal behaviour for my private site and only seems to be happening once a week.
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This is a huge breach of privacy on a private website. Can someone please help with this, or if not tell me how to make a formal complaint to WordPress?
Many thanks -
Only people having a login are able to go to your site and log in to it. If one of your allowed subscribers had a security breach or has been hacked, the hackers are able to log in to your site. So check your stats to see who has logged in to your site on a spike day.
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Nobody logs on to my site but me. Some subscribers have been granted permission to view. I have no way of knowing which particular subscriber has viewed my site on any given day.
I can see which country the visitors are in. If 1 subscriber had a security breach would all the spikes not originate from the same country?
The spikes started on 1st September. So far the spikes are as follows:Sep 5th – 165 views from USA
sept 8th – 527 views from USA
sept 21st – 334 views from UK
sept 24th – 138 views from Ireland
sept 25th – 91 views from Norway
Oct 1st – 710 views from USA
Before 1st Sept I was getting about 6 views per day. -
These stats are making zero sense to me.
On one of my spike days it says I had 138 views from 1 visitor in Ireland.However, the Posts & Pages section show only 3 views of 1 page (which is about what I’d expect to see if my site was viewed by 1 of my regular visitors).
If there have been 138 views what pages is this visitor looking at and why aren’t those page views showing up in the Posts & Pages section?
Please can someone explain this to me?
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I’m getting concerned now.
I was sound asleep at 5am this morning. Yet I’ve had a view of my WP-dashboard from someone in the UK via the WordPress reader? I’ve already changed the password on my account before this happened in case my login had been compromised.
Please can a member of staff respond.
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Staff are not helping with this which is a disgrace quite frankly. For the benefit of anyone else who has this issue:
Luckily for me I also have a paid wordpress plan for my business site. I contacted support through that paid plan.
I was told the ‘traffic’ was suspicious bot activity and that attempts were being made to access my private site.
I was advised to change my password (which I’d already done) and added 2 factor authentication using my mobile phone.
WordPress staff are now looking at whether a bot has actually accessed my login or dashboard, both of which would be a breach of security and privacy on my site. I’m now waiting for them to get back to me (they’ve so far been very quick and helpful). -
Hi @bamimages – we’d like to continue working on this with you. We’re waiting for your reply to our email on October 14th, requesting the steps on how you are accessing the stats page + the details of the browser you are using. Please get back to us there so that we can continue the investigation and get to the bottom of this.
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I haven’t received an email from WordPress regarding this (other than from the contact I made through my paid business site) and there is nothing from WordPress in my spam folder.
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Hi @bertieandme, expanding on Brock’s reply above, it looks like bad browser/extension behavior from one of your users (whose visits do count on your private site). Your most recent spike was 315 views from one user on a single date.
You’re welcome to continue this forum thread or open a new email support ticket with us at
support@wordpress.com. -
Thanks for the reply. Can you explain how, if it’s one single user with a bad browser extension, the traffic spikes come from 3 different countries (Ireland, Norway and the USA)?
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Hi @bertieandme. We have identified the probable issue with the stats on your site, and our developers are investigating further. We have sent you a couple of emails regarding this issue, so please keep an eye on those, as we will share updates about this matter there as soon as we have them. Thank you!
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That’s definitely strange. It might be a stats reporting glitch or bot traffic triggering false views. You can try clearing cache, checking referrers, and reviewing recent updates or connected plugins to rule out any automated hits.
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