Strange visit from Google

spenland · #1 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 11:53 AM

Hi Everyone, I'm not sure where the best place to post this is so I thought I would start with the google forum. I just looked at my logs through clicktracks for yesterdays web traffic and noticed I received 65 hits for the keyword "wapsftr" from Google with an average time on site of zero. I checked and my website does not show up at all for this weird keyword, but my logs tell me this came from a google organic search.

Whats going on here? Is this a bot? How can I stop this type of spam traffic in the future?

**wige** · #2 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 12:45 PM

I have seen the same thing in my own logs, although the traffic was coming from MSN, with odd search terms. I use a customized log analyzer that lists the IP address, search query and page in the results that every visitor comes from (useful for spotting trends) and I noticed a lot of searches seeming to come from page 1 of MSN for keywords like "California" and "New York". Subsequent visits had keywords that were closer to what my business is about, but not terms that I should be on the first page for (and I wasn't). The browser tag also resolved to a legitimate browser (IE6 as I recall). In my case, the traffic seems to be from a bot, and most likely is the same in your case as well. The final tip-off for me was that all the traffic came from different IP addresses, all in the same sub-C block, so I ended up blocking that group of addresses through Apache. Unfortunately, because the traffic spoofs a human request, it is nearly impossible to block the traffic automatically.

spenland · #3 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 01:22 PM

Yeah thats what I was afraid of. What is the purpose of a bot like this? Is is just scraping content from my site?

DrTandem1 · #4 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 03:51 PM

Just a guess...Could it be a Googlebot? Do you use Google Sitemaps? I suspect the last few letters "ftr" is short for filter and it isn't a search term, but a marker looking for some term(s). Since I doubt your site contains such a term as "wapsftr," how could it have been detected as a hit for such a search?

bosmolskate · #5 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 05:15 PM

This is a good question. I have a few websites ad the same thing appears in all of them yet I do not know where they came from or why they appear. I believe it is most likely Googlebot indexing your page, but this is a great question and I look forwad to reading from other moderators what they think.

ddwebguru · #6 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 07:26 AM

Is clicktrack fine for track logs? I use google analytic and it shows nice.

it may be 1.some one type wrongly "wapsftr" and your site come in this moment but may be it disappear now - it may happen, I saw with the keyword "web design" some traffic come but when I search our website not come.
2.may be "DrTandem1" is right, it's a googlebot mistake
Time is zero means traffic come but not click in your site navigation

spenland · #7 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 04:19 PM

Thanks for all the replies guys. I tend to think that Tandem is right as well, but clicktracks is supposed to ignore bots so I'm not sure whats happening. One interesting tidbit, all this traffic came from France!! haha

**wige** · #8 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007, 05:55 PM

That is one of the interesting things with this traffic, everything in the headers looks legit. The referrer is a valid search engine results page, and the user agent is an exact match for a common web browser. Unless the IP address or block of addresses are identified by some other suspicious activity there is no way for an automated process (such as your analytics software) to filter this out. Even GA records this traffic. On the plus side for whoever runs this bot, on a large site they are virtually guaranteed to be able to access the target site without restriction or detection on most sites since many webmasters don't look this closely at their statistics. On the negative for the webmaster, not only can you not automatically block the traffic, your analytics data will be tainted by false requests that can compose a decent percentage of your traffic.

khushwant · #9 (**permalink**) 12-14-2007, 12:04 AM

Most of the time it occurs because of Google Image Search check in reffering site if you are getting traffic fom images.google.com (or similar)

It happened with me many times almost 95 % (alsomt because I didn't count) of them were from Googel Image search or google groups, other five percent I was never able to find out.

innominds · #10 (**permalink**) 12-14-2007, 02:59 AM

Even if the referral is from the Google images, then the website shows up in the images search. But there are some cases, the site doesn't show up even if there are 50 visitors for that particular keyword.

khushwant · #11 (**permalink**) 12-14-2007, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innominds

Even if the referral is from the Google images, then the website shows up in the images search. But there are some cases, the site doesn't show up even if there are 50 visitors for that particular keyword.

It could be result of google dance (it really is very powerful) for example my new site it was at the 5th place or keyword "Punjabi Mp3" but now I can't even find it.
Another example I never tried t get traffic (or never thought) for keyword "vida guerra" but five days ago I got 2000 visitors from this keyword, and found out that I was on first page on Google image search. I've thousand of celebrity pictures on my site but only two of vida guerra,!! Well, now I'm ot in search results (I didn't find till the page 10) because google dance was over.

**incrediblehelp** · #12 (**permalink**) 12-14-2007, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by khushwant

It could be result of google dance (it really is very powerful) for example my new site it was at the 5th place or keyword "Punjabi Mp3" but now I can't even find it.
Another example I never tried t get traffic (or never thought) for keyword "vida guerra" but five days ago I got 2000 visitors from this keyword, and found out that I was on first page on Google image search. I've thousand of celebrity pictures on my site but only two of vida guerra,!! Well, now I'm ot in search results (I didn't find till the page 10) because google dance was over.

Google doesnt "dance" anymore.

khushwant · #13 (**permalink**) 12-20-2007, 03:23 PM

Google Does Dance and I can prove it

**incrediblehelp** · #14 (**permalink**) 12-20-2007, 03:39 PM

Sorry khushwant but the Google dance your referring to (and the one that most of us used to know) doesnt exist anymore. Google updates nearly everyday. MoOre of a ever flux and not a dance once a month.

full house · #15 (**permalink**) 12-27-2007, 07:21 AM

Yah! I think its a google dance! If not maybe google just give a gift this Christmas . . .

!aatm · #16 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 11:23 PM

I have the same problem. How to solve it? thanks

Peter (IMC) · #17 (**permalink**) 04-16-2008, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by khushwant

Google Does Dance and I can prove it

Google dance is the wrong term. Google dance used to be the monthly update of Pagerank in the index which resulted in switching behaviour in the SERP's. They don't do it like that anymore.

What you call Google dance is something else. More likely related to age factors. You said that that happened to your "new site". It's normal positions aren't stable with new websites.

freetraff · #18 (**permalink**) 04-17-2008, 04:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spenland

Hi Everyone, I'm not sure where the best place to post this is so I thought I would start with the google forum. I just looked at my logs through clicktracks for yesterdays web traffic and noticed I received 65 hits for the keyword "wapsftr" from Google with an average time on site of zero. I checked and my website does not show up at all for this weird keyword, but my logs tell me this came from a google organic search.

Whats going on here? Is this a bot? How can I stop this type of spam traffic in the future?

I had a situation close to this when someone tried to sabotage my AdSense account.

I got 400+ visits from MSN search results for a keyword that looked ok but one thing - it was like this "Keyword keyword keyword" - in all 400+ cases the first letter was capitalized. Surely this was unnatural, because all of a sudden over four hundred people doing one and the same search with the first word capitalized - stinky. By the way, all 400+ stinky visits came from different IPs.

That is why, in case on that day you got many clicks on AdSenses on that site, please don't hesitate to report to Google AdSense team on this page https://www.google.com/adsense/suppo...clicks_contact otherwise Google can think that you are using smart clicking software that hides behind different IPs.