sudden stumbleupon traffic ??? any ideas ?

[scrawnybob]

hi all

hopefully someone up on social sites can give me some pointers on this

yesterday I had what seems like a one day spike on traffic to my main poker strategy navigation page on my site (ie. its just a list of links to my strategy articles)

Online Poker Strategy Articles & Texas Holdem Tips - 4kingpoker.com

anyway in the stats it looks like virtually all the traffic came from stumbleupon.com (with no additional info)

this is a one day spike of 700+ uniques

however the bounce and exit rates are high 68% & 72% respectively

on the up side the time on page ave is 1.30

this is a one off day and nothing continuing either before or after afiaks

what is this likely to have come from ??

is there a way of working out if someone has stumbled this page or why its a sharp one off day and not an ongoing trickle which would make more sense ?

has anyone else had something like this happen ?

cheers scrawnybob

[CK]

hi all

hopefully someone up on social sites can give me some pointers on this

yesterday I had what seems like a one day spike on traffic to my main poker strategy navigation page on my site (ie. its just a list of links to my strategy articles)

Online Poker Strategy Articles & Texas Holdem Tips - 4kingpoker.com

anyway in the stats it looks like virtually all the traffic came from stumbleupon.com (with no additional info)

this is a one day spike of 700+ uniques

however the bounce and exit rates are high 68% & 72% respectively

on the up side the time on page ave is 1.30

this is a one off day and nothing continuing either before or after afiaks

what is this likely to have come from ??

is there a way of working out if someone has stumbled this page or why its a sharp one off day and not an ongoing trickle which would make more sense ?

has anyone else had something like this happen ?

cheers scrawnybob

That might have been from me I stumbled your page a few days ago. (Sorry if it screwed with your stats)

The sudden spike is usually when someone else likes it as well and has hit the thumbs up button or a number of people found it by clicking the stumble button since it's now in their system. The stumble button automatically redirects them to websites that fall within the categories they've picked when they installed the toolbar

Its normal and should go away after a couple days...although you'll likely get hits again just not as big of a rush.

It looks like they are upgrading right now or doing some maintance but when its back you can view this url to see who's stumbled your page. If you have the toolbar installed just click the info link

Online Poker Strategy Articles &Texas Holdem Tips - 4kingpoker.com - StumbleUpon

[NickM]

Everything that you have mentioned is very typical of Stumbleupon traffic. Basically what happened was that a Stumbleupon user liked your page and gave it a "thumbs up." By doing that, many other Stumbleupon users were sent to that page when they were stumbling through "poker" content. If no other users thumbs up your page, then the stumble chain dies and so does your traffic. You see a real lot of traffic when the users that are sent to your stumbled page like your page enough to keep giving it a "thumbs up" thereby sending more people, who then do the same. I have gotten several thousand visitors per day for several days to certain interesting pages.

Stumbleupon will always get you more of a spike pattern than a steady flow or trickle because of the way it works. "Hot" content gets tons of visitors, who are mostly worthless. They are window shoppers. Just browsing around looking for cool content, not anything specific. Your bounce rates around 70% are actually extremely low for SU traffic. Mine is usually around 92%+.

Stumbleupon traffic spikes are fun but mostly worthless, unless you manage to get a link or two from your new visitors.

[scrawnybob]

hi Kaus

no worries at all - infact a big thankyou for thinking it was a page worth bookmarking ;-)

all genuine traffic is welcome - its just nice to be able to figure how it got there - so thanks Kaus on both fronts

also thanks to Nick for the extra info

this leads me to a few more questions as I really havent got to grips with stumble etc

a) if I hadnt found out it was your bookmarking it via PAL how would I go about analysing stumble bookmarking / bookmarks ?

eg. If I knew who had stumbled my page I would likely go and check out their stuff and start to stumble theirs or even link to them if they had some nice content etc ... but if I cant figure out who it was I cant be proactive

b) Is it worth adding stumble and all the other social widget button things to the bottom of article / strategy pages ? I did this when they first did them and kind of concluded that it wasnt something that people used - but maybe this has changed ? - also did I understand it right that they might help to keep something stumbled back in the frame ?

c) Nick mentioned that the bounce rate wasnt so bad for stumble traffic but quality of their traffic is low - however if I wanted to convert it better on pages like the one bookmarked is it better to keep simple links and short description (like it is) or add graphics and funk it up ?

if 70% is ok then great but I cant help thinking for a page that is effectively a menu board of links to strategy articles that click throughs could have been higher - so I'm guessing SOMESORT of work on its presentation would be a good idea - a stumble browser may be less attentive but also maybe indicative of changes that could help generally

I know Randy advocates not overloading with graphics (that too many poker sites are too graphis heavy) and thats pretty much where Ive always ended up - but many sites now have small graphics next to every news / strat etc description and it sure looks pretty etc and I'm wondering if these touches actually convert / get more click throughs than totally plain badger style format (as his content is really really strong to start off with) ?

cheers scrawnybob

ps. thanks Kaus I think I kind of understand the checking on stumble from the link you put in at the bottom of your post - cheers

[CK]

Ive got the toolbar installed. You can download it here and click the info button when you want to see who stumbled a page

Start stumbling with the StumbleUpon Tddoolbar | StumbleUpon

I dont think SU converts...especially with what we do but I think it can give you additional links if some of the big bookmarking people find your page. Theres another PAL member that I stumbled pretty much anytime he posts a new page because his stuff is incredibly amusing and Im sure others think the same. If he can get someone else to link to him by finding his pages on SU than great all the better

I dont look at SU as a way to get conversions but a way to get pages exposed to others who wouldnt see it otherwise which could lead to links. Weve had a couple pages where users click through to read more, although most will leave after checking out the page and its usually within 25 secs. I dont think the design will have that much of an impact with users TBH. If you wanted to test I would suggest clicktale so you can see what they are doing when they land on your page.

Edit - Looks like you had two others give you a thumbs up after me Nice!
http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.4...s_articles.php

[scrawnybob]

cheers

I think the av of 1.30 seems high to me - most of my traffic comes direct to individual strat pages afaiks - maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle but 1.30 seems like a long time to then not click a link if that makes sense ...

I can defo see Nicks point on 30 sec one page and away visitors - what concerns me is its as if they looked for a good while and still didnt click through - that or I missed something else

interesting anyway - I shall look into stumble etc a bit more

cheers SB

[NickM]

Is 1:30 time on page, or time on site?