Spike in views from bots and other strange sources

[WishboneJewelryCraft]

I had an oddly significant spike in views. I've seen this before by Etsy bots, but this one is odd. 
When looking at the stats 'source' of views I have never seen this before.
The sources are odd, a few are definitely russian bots.

click.appcast.io

www.youtube.com

twitter.com

yandex.ru

duckduckgo.com

yandex.com

www.baidu.com

careers.microsoft.com

if you look up Yandex, it's a russian search and information service, e-commerce, navigation, mobile applications, and online advertising.

And Microsoft careers..really? I sure as hell hope my data is safe with Etsy, cuz I' being "crawled" it seems. Any one else seen anything like this?

[YarnOtterHandmade]

Yes, it happened to my shop on February 19th.  Etsy did not filter the strange views out as bots.  It makes me think, with the reported Russian cyber attacks on Ukraine, are Etsy or US cyber assets in general being probed for weakness?

[WishboneJewelryCraft]

I wonder the same thing. 
I've been going through all my passwords and changing them, just in case. Thank you for your reply. 

[knitwit4ever]

I also had bot-like spikes on two recent nights, just after midnight EST, each with about 50 views, mostly one per item.  Yandex was one of the view sources but there were others.

[WishboneJewelryCraft]

thank you for your response. I think an Etsy Bot filter isn't working? I'm not sure, but it's concerning. 

[CuriousityShop]

Since people in the Ukraine do have etsy shops, that may be why Russia is probing. Make sure you have anti virus and anti malware programs on all your devices. Russia is also angry with the US. If you need to download anything, make sure you have browser protection. I just saw that there is a trojan virus on the Malwarebytes site.

[WishboneJewelryCraft]

ugh.. thank you for the insight and your response (biting my nails in background) 

[CostumeCoutureNaomi]

Duck duck go is a normal search engine that is gaining popularity over google in the US. 

It's marketing point is that is doesn't use the commercial tracking cookies that google uses or saves your searches like google, filters out tracking cookies from websites and does a full clear of history and cookies every time you close a webpage.

If you are seeing a rise in traffic from duck duck go, it is nothing to worry about.  They used to be obscure but have gained in popularity over the past year.  I noticed that they have recently started advertising on major networks during prime time, so that probably explains you seeing more searches from duck duck go.

[WishboneJewelryCraft]

ya, this is not a normal search from any one of the listed sites. It's an unusual spike from all the above listed sources under 'direct traffic' and all of which are slated to be at exactly the same time. I think it's something more to do with the stats...the more I look into my google analytics and other analytic sources. It's as if Etsy finally changed the setting on my stats? 

[TweedyLand]

I'm in Russia and I got over 40 visits yesterday at 11am ET from here:

www.google.com 

www.bing.com

www.google.co.uk

www.google.de

www.google.at

click.appcast.io

twitter.com

And this is not the first time in the past few months, it's unnerving

[WishboneJewelryCraft]

Not much can be done, it appears. Making sure all your personal securities and bases are up to date and secure as can be is about the best we can do. (Still nail biting) 

it messes with the shops conversion rates too, so that’s not so fun for us wee little guys. 

[IvoryCatCreations]

I got the same spikes on two separate nights of over 200 each. And as said from all kinds of sites. Bots for sure.

[TreasurefromtheTide]

Yup exactly the same last night & now again today!

[EarlyBirdProjects]

Yes I've had one per month for the last 3 months, looks like someone is viewing every one of my listings. Came here to see if any one had insight. It irritates me just because I wait for it to fall off each month for better conversion rate, and then I get another spike. 

[HeleneSmithPhoto]

same weird views! alot of them... never before... not sure when they started; haven't viewed in months... 

[Tresfes]

I've been having this issue since February.  Just this past Friday, I received a spike of views (over 70) at 3AM from three different sources: direct traffic (YouTube - My shop is not on YouTube), Social (Facebook - I do market on Facebook, but the listings viewed don't match my current posts and ads) and Etsy marketing & SEO.  Google analytics only shows 1 visitor during that time.   I understand that Etsy and Google measure things differently; on a typical day the variances are not this wide, and shop traffic is more evenly distributed.  Like other sellers, I'm concerned about shop conversion rate.  I'm a new seller (less than 1 year on Etsy) and would like to share my information/data with someone at Etsy to understand these data spikes.  Is there a way to reach them to discuss this concern?  Does anyone know if Etsy is looking into these visit spikes?  Thanks for the help!

[WishboneJewelryCraft]

If they are, they never reply to these forums. I have never heard from Etsy on these issues. 
Good luck getting a hold of a human. Let us know if you find anything out. 

[LoonMtEmbroidnCrafts]

My shop as well has had strange stats for views!  Yesterday 6/27 was especially strange!

[WishboneJewelryCraft]

Another large spike today, I see the bots are still not thwarted. Etsy still has not fixed the problem so down go my conversion rates yet again. Grrrr