I looked at the site stats yesterday and am a bit alarmed. I've sent some notification to Blogger (Google) but pretty much all of a sudden I'm seeing traffic numbers that are a bit crazy. We went from 5,000 to 7,000 page views per day to10,000+ yesterday and already 18,000+ today. They are all originating from a site listed as http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1
I have tried following the link only to get a redirect warning notice from Google. Note that the address uses "google.co" instead of "google.com".
I don't understand it but I am always wary of web anomalies. As I wrote above, I have sent screen shots and samples to Google/Blogger and am waiting to hear back.
While I like the idea of having a legion of followers I really only want to write stuff for legitimate human beings. If you are an internet genius and you have some ideas about this please toss me an e-mail or leave your pearls of wisdom in the comments.
If this persists I may shut down the blog for a few days while brighter minds get to the bottom of all this.
Help? Kirk
Someone mentioned a "redirect virus" although Blogger is not hosted on my computer. Just something to be aware of and cautious about.
Added note: Smarter minds (thanks Chuq) have pointed me to some FAQs about this issue. It seems to affect only the internal stats, conveys no viruses to readers and is a known issue at Google. I will leave this up for a few days just to let everyone know. Thanks for the quick responses from my professional audience!
10 comments:
Seems like something Blogger ought to be able to sort out. Sorry you're getting numbers that are anomalous. I usually just watch my blog numbers decline. Lol
Hi Alexander, It's my hope that Blogger sorts this out and blocks that address. I don't know enough to really say. I've been watching real numbers decline each year since 2013 but I'm a glutton for punishment and I'm somewhat addicted to the keyboard...
Apparently referer spam. It is explained on the Blogger Help Forum: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/blogger/B6SeYiv4qxA
If your blog's real numbers have been declining, I suspect it's because of the phenomenon you yourself have written about extensively -- the graying of photography. The people who have no deep and lasting commitment to photography are dropping by the wayside, which means that you may have a smaller audience, but one far more worth writing for than the dilettantes.
Remember, when you have a large number of uncommitted people, all you actually have is a large number of uncommitted people.
Hi Dave, Thanks for the reminder. Also, I presume that more and more people are reading on RSS feeds and such which aren't reflected on our stats. If I look at lifetime page views on the blog I get around 22,000,000 but when I check life time stats on Google Plus profile it's more like 82.000.000. Huge difference. I mostly ignore the numbers unless that are out of whack. I depend mostly on the feedback from readers like you.
not a nerd or a geek cannot help w/your anamoly just let you know at least 1 human is reading your blog with interest
Like Stan said, it's referral spam. The stats that you get from your Blogger dashboard are very inaccurate -- often by a factor of several times (that is, they'll overstate pageviews). To get the most accurate stats install Google Analytics or something similar. Even those stats can be wrong sometimes (referral spam will sometimes show up, but they're pretty good at finding it and removing it from your cumulative stats). --John Griffin
I'm a real life human reader also. I get the same referral spam on my blogger blog, and I seem to get more accurate stats from Google Analytics. And for the record, Google in the UK is google.co.uk
Kurt,
The official address for UK websites is www.xxxxxxxxx.co.uk, for example ebay in the UK is http://www.ebay.co.uk/
So no need to be concerned about .co vs .com in this situation.
Cheeres JD
Thanks JD. One correction; It's "Kirk" (like Captain Kirk in Star Trek), not "Kurt."
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