Ubuntu Boosting Blog Hits

Andrew Bolster

Senior R&D Manager (Data Science) at Synopsys Software Integrity Group and Treasurer @ Bsides Belfast and NI OpenGovernment Network

I had a bit of a surprise logging into my weekly stats-fest that is my Google Analytics account; 300% rise in Search Based traffic. My daily traffic is meagre to say the least but still, to see such a jump on the week-on-week numbers is always a good thing.

[caption id=”attachment_415” align=”alignright” width=”300” caption=”Google Analytics - Traffic Sources Overview”]Google Analytics - Traffic Sources Overview[/caption]

But I, like alot of people in this field, like knowing why! My first thought was that Google had recently sent out a press release governing updated search characteristics, and while I didn’t see anything relevant to my site in particular, its possible that general algorithmic tweaks could have slid me up the rankings.

Unfortunately I wasn’t satisfied with that explanation as it doesn’t explain that that 300% spike happened over one day; the 29th of April.   15 Visitors on the 28th, 55 on the 29th, Why? What happened on that day that would send people to my blog?

[caption id=”attachment_416” align=”alignleft” width=”226” caption=”Keywords - Google Analytics”]Keywords - Google Analytics[/caption]

Guess when Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS went out for final release.

Mystery solved. Of course if I had taken a closer look at the keywords it might have become obvious

So word to the wise! Tag your posts and get in early!

Published: May 04 2010

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