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Sudden Unexplained Traffic Spike

by rdilipk1
9 replies
Okay! This should ideally be a reason to rejoice, but I am worried..

My Wordpress blog is seeing a huge and unexplained traffic spike since July. The traffic has gone up by almost 60 times. Google Analytics doesn't show any information. All that I am able to see is that the source is "Direct". Most of this traffic just drops off from the first page of the blog.

Tried a lot of things, but nothing seems to be giving a solution. Any guidance will be much appreciated..
#spike #sudden #traffic #unexplained
  • Profile picture of the author DaleRodge
    60 times!? That's quite a lot!

    I have to admit it's strange, however there was a case study done not so long back that proved around 80% or something of "Direct" traffic was actually coming from search engines (wish I could find the link!).
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  • Profile picture of the author JeffreyBenson
    It looks like a bot sending you traffic. Have you tried asking your hosting company to help you verify where the traffic is coming from? They should be able to help you sort it out.
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  • Profile picture of the author DaleRodge
    I'd also have said bot, but that's weird because generally they leave a referrer (referrer spam), otherwise unless they were trying to take your site down it'd be pretty pointless.
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    • Profile picture of the author kilgore
      Originally Posted by DaleRodge View Post

      I'd also have said bot, but that's weird because generally they leave a referrer (referrer spam), otherwise unless they were trying to take your site down it'd be pretty pointless.
      Not all bots show referrers and they're not all trying to take your site down. Without knowing more, my guess is that this is a bot (or bots) trying to find (and take advantage of) security holes in your site.

      The advice about trying to find the IP addresses from this traffic is good. I'd also recommend looking at the pages requested. Both of these can give you hints as to the nature of the attack.

      At the end of the day, unfortunately, there's probably not much you can do about it. Malicious bots don't care about your robots.txt. Moreover, they will attack you from multiple IP addresses so blocking IP addresses usually isn't effective. There are also a million vulnerabilities that they may be scanning for.

      The best advice is to keep your systems patched, secure and up to date and to make sure you have good backups and a solid disaster recovery plan. In other words, hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    Can you look in your server logs and see the different IP addresses? Then do some research to see if they are coming from different areas and such.

    What is the landing page the direct traffic is getting to? Is your website compromised at all and part of a link redirect scheme that effects IE users?
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    • Profile picture of the author rdilipk1
      Have written to my hosting company to check if they can get me some info. Otherwise I checked all possible logs but nothing worthwhile came out of it. Also tried blocking a few of the bots using my robots.txt file but the traffic still continues..

      Lemme see what information I get from my hosting company.
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  • Profile picture of the author huffdoggie
    Originally Posted by rdilipk1 View Post

    Okay! This should ideally be a reason to rejoice, but I am worried..

    My Wordpress blog is seeing a huge and unexplained traffic spike since July. The traffic has gone up by almost 60 times. Google Analytics doesn't show any information. All that I am able to see is that the source is "Direct". Most of this traffic just drops off from the first page of the blog.

    Tried a lot of things, but nothing seems to be giving a solution. Any guidance will be much appreciated..
    Since youre on Wordpress, have you tried a plug-in called Wordfence? it's a great way to see who is dropping by your website. It shows ip addresses, country, etc. you can even block ips and ranges of ips.
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    • Profile picture of the author rdilipk1
      Originally Posted by huffdoggie View Post

      Since youre on Wordpress, have you tried a plug-in called Wordfence? it's a great way to see who is dropping by your website. It shows ip addresses, country, etc. you can even block ips and ranges of ips.
      I already have Wordfence installed. But it is of little help in identifying the problem visitors.

      I am also using Cloudflare. But no help there as well.
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      • Profile picture of the author damoncloudflare
        Originally Posted by rdilipk1 View Post

        I already have Wordfence installed. But it is of little help in identifying the problem visitors.

        I am also using Cloudflare. But no help there as well.
        -It absolutely sounds like a bot because Google Analytics wouldn't capture this information. Have you tried bumping up your security settings in CloudFlare?

        -Your server logs should be giving you something to work with.

        -If you're on a paid plan with CloudFlare, then the Web Application Firewall would probably help with this.
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