Hello everyone, my website has been undergoing SEO work for about a week now by a professional I hired. Recently, I have noticed a sudden increase in daily traffic to my website, with around 3000 visitors coming in each day for the past 4 days. Upon checking Google Analytics, I noticed that all of this traffic is coming from Google, but their session engagement time is 0 seconds. Surprisingly, even though they are not engaging with the site, 60% of the traffic has added products to their cart without completing a purchase. The Google Search Console is only showing 20 clicks daily, not the 3000 visitors I am receiving.I have raised my concerns with the SEO person, who assured me that this traffic will not harm the SEO or the domain. However, I suspect that this traffic is bot-generated. I am unsure whether this bot traffic will have a positive or negative impact on my website’s SEO in the long run. Should I stop this bot traffic? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
It’s highly likely that the traffic you’re seeing is bot-generated, especially given the 0-second engagement time and the discrepancy between Google Search Console data and your analytics. While your SEO person assures you that this won’t harm your SEO, there are significant risks associated with bot traffic:
- Penalization by Google: Google actively penalizes websites with unnatural traffic, which includes bot traffic. This can lead to lower rankings and decreased organic visibility.
- Falsely Inflated Metrics: Bot traffic can skew your website analytics, giving you a false sense of your actual performance and making it harder to track real user engagement.
- Negative User Experience: Real users might find it harder to navigate your website if it’s constantly flooded with bot traffic, potentially deterring them from making a purchase.
- Wasted Resources: Bot traffic puts unnecessary strain on your website’s server resources, potentially slowing down the site for real users and impacting user experience.
Therefore, it’s crucial to stop this bot traffic. You should communicate your concerns to your SEO person and request them to investigate the source of the traffic and implement measures to stop it. If they fail to address your concerns, you may need to reconsider your working relationship with them.
It’s important to rely on organic, high-quality traffic from real users for sustainable SEO success. Focus on creating valuable content, optimizing your website, and building genuine engagement with your audience.