False hits or spam hits

Hi Pat,

Can you point me to one of your posts where this is happening so I can have a closer look?

Also, note that WordPress.com Stats and Google Analytics use different methods to identify and track activity on your site. You can expect Google Analytics and WordPress.com stats to always show slightly different totals for your visits, views, etc. However, you will be able to notice the same trends and patterns in both systems.

Hi Fotis. The spikes show up in the little stats graph that appears at the top of the site when a logged in user visits. When it happens it seems to hit the homepage and possible the newest posts on the homepage.

Since the top graph only shows the last 48 hours I can’t pick out a point where it happened in the last 48 to 72 hours. But the next time it happens, which mostly will be in the next few days, I could screen shot the graph and post back on this thread.

Thanks,

Pat

Sounds good. Let us know when you have that screenshot and we’ll be happy to take a look.

Thanks!

Ok. So I got the artificial hits today.

This is a screen shot of the home page that shows the spike on the little graph that appears at the top of the page. https://ibb.co/SRJNhCp.

This screen shot is of the page hits. The hits do not appear to be on any one page, but spread out over several. https://ibb.co/0D8JFkB

I will add that the page hits for any one page are not all that unusual, but 254 total site hits at 11:26 am CDT, is unusual.

I checked your site’s stats and I don’t notice anything weird. Those spikes in traffic are normal and expected. It happens when -for example- people from different parts of the country are waking up and go online.

Ok. It just seems odd that these spikes only occur for one hour and that they don’t happen everyday. I post everyday, and normally just once a day, but don’t see a spike everyday.

I do see an increase in traffic when my email updates go out or when I post on social media, but those increase are curves not spikes. They go up over several hours and then go down over several hours.

Thanks.

What’s also odd about it is that I have this strange website with 74 referrals (https://webmail.etcnow.com/). Obviously this is causing the high number of hits, which I don’t think are actual users. That website doesn’t appear in the referrals list either the day before nor after.

Thanks,

Pat

Referral spam is almost as common these days as comment spam.

You can hide them from your stats as they happen following these steps: https://wordpress.com/support/stats/#marking-spam-referrers

There are also a variety of plugins out there which can assist in blocking these bots, like https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/block-bad-queries/ and https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/blackhole-bad-bots/

Thanks Mark! On the linked page it says, “Each entry (with the exception of a few whitelisted referrers, such as WordPress.com) has a clickable ellipsis next to the view count.” I don’t see a “clickable ellipsis” on my stats referrers page.

On my stats referrers page I see a list of links in a box with a number representing the total number of referrals across from the link, but there is no clickable ellipsis.

To get to that list I went under Dashboard>JetPack>Site Stats>and then clicked on “summaries” in the “Referrers” Box.

Thanks!

Pat

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by pasqualerose.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by pasqualerose.

Thanks Mark!

James ??

To get to that list I went under Dashboard>JetPack>Site Stats>and then clicked on “summaries” in the “Referrers” Box.

You’ll need to be viewing the expanded stats for the site at https://wordpress.com/stats/day under the connected WordPress.com account.

Sorry??. Who knows why I wrote Mark. No doubt I was very distracted by children.????

Well, I never knew that was there. Thanks!

I did. it’s done.

Thanks James!

Pat