Sudden increase of views with no referral

  • Unknown's avatar
    creepingfreely · Member ·

    Hi,

    I’m not entirely sure if it could be bots, but one single post has tripped in the amount of views rapidly in the matter of hours. Most seem to come from the United States with no referral. Not sure if this entirely normal.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    mdtay11 · Member ·

    I’m seeing the same thing: an increase of visitors by 150 percent over the past few months. Most explanations I’ve seen either blame a) China (to learn how to take over the USA by reading my blog, I guess?) or b) bots. But my visits are mostly from the US with a smattering of other countries (according to JetPack stats). And why would bots view my posts but then do nothing? I assumed the purpose of bots was to entice some sort of financially rewarding behavior (hey, try my new elixir for only $50!!!). The folks at WordPress seem to have little interest in solving this problem for those of us who actually are trying to maintain a blog, from what I’ve seen. So I’m curious whether you get any response from WordPress.

  • Unknown's avatar
    israelmartinsrt · Member ·

    Hi @creepingfreely, I understand why you’re concerned about the sudden spike in views, as I would be too if I was in your shoes. I’ll help you figure out whether it’s actual human views or not.

    A sudden spike in “No Referral” traffic is usually one of two things: real traffic (like private shares [WhatsApp, Slack, etc.] and Google Discover) or bots.

    In your case, I saw 1.1k views and 964 visitors in the last 7 days, which is a very healthy ~1:1 ratio. It strongly suggests real human visitors, not bots. Bots typically generate many views from very few visitors.

    I also noticed a low engagement of 2 likes and 1 comment within the same period. This actually fits Google Discover traffic. Discover visitors usually click, read quickly, and leave. They’re not logged in, so they rarely like or comment.

    If the spike drops off within 24–48 hours, it was likely a Discover feature. If it stays steady, your post may have been widely shared privately.

    Either way, this looks like genuine traffic, not something harmful. You may want to add clear subscribe block to make the most of it 😉

    If you’re open to that, you may follow the steps in this guide on using the Subscribe block: https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/subscribe-block/

    I hope that helps clarify things, and I’m here to help if you have more questions 🙂

  • The topic ‘Sudden increase of views with no referral’ is closed to new replies.