Yesterday I got a message from WordPress that my stats were booming.
BOOM! The comment told me I was getting 1,054 hourly views which is WAAAY more than normal. At the end of the day I looked at my stats. I had 2,289 views, and of those 2,142 had been to a piece I posted back in August titled “A Seriously Misplaced Protest”. This post was about two protesters who had run out onto a jump course while a horse and rider were on the course and competing. Fortunately no one was hurt but it could have been disastrous for the protesters or the horse and rider.
So where did all these views come from? 2,073 of them came from Twitter. The USA had the most with 1,971 views. I do not have a Twitter account and I am not interested in having one so there is no way I can look to see what may have caused this surge.
Also of note was the fact that none of these viewers posted a comment or other response. Was this because they did not realize what the post was about? Were they looking for some other protest?
Has anyone else had something like this happen?
HorseAddict 
I think this is likely going to happen to you every time there is a big protest that gets attention in media, since you used that word in your post.
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I think it will only happen if the post is shared by someone like the journalist who shared it to their one million followers on Twitter. Thanks for commenting and all the best for Christmas and the New Year in Sweden.
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If yiur blog gets a tweet by an account with a lrage number of followers this can happened – it did with me and Donegal Tourism a while back. So not necessarily bots.
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I agree. I have seen the twitter page that featured my post and I can see it has had a lot of shares. Fellow Blogger JD gave me the link as I do not have a Twitter account.
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This will probably go to spam, but you can see the tweet here: https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1207321724250836992
My own experience in blogging for over ten years: more people read than ever comment. Sometimes google updating their search indexes will cause an uptick.
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Ah! Thanks for sharing this Tweet feed. That seems to make sense. Twitter can generate a huge volume of views. I think you may have come up with the answer! Thank you.
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I’m not all that technical but I’m glad someone found the Tweet for you. I’d also say that a few shares around Twitter could likely get the post out to reach hundreds of people pretty quickly. Well done, blogging superstar! 😉xx
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Thanks but I am no superstar. My part in the blogoshpere will go back to normal now.😀
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Anne, Soledad O’Brien (a news journalist w/over 1M followers) tweeted out the post on her twitter account. So, yeah, a lot of folks saw it! Soledad also is an equestrian. It was a supportive post/tweet.
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I did follow your link in the other comment and I can see her post. I am glad to see that it was also positive and equestrian related. Thanks so much for this. The mystery is solved!
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You never know who is reading! 🙂
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Yes! Good point.
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That’s quite a surge! Well, perhaps even if it’s based on readers looking for news about the impeachment, there may be some horse fanciers among them, who’ll be glad to see some positive posts, and take a break from politics.
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That is a positive way to look at it. I know I need a break from it and I’m not even American. But we have stuff going on up here too. Thanks for commenting .
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Fellow blogger JD found the answer on Twitter. A news journalist who is also an equestrian and has 1Million followers post the link to my blog post on her Twitter feed .
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Oh that’s great!!
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I take it your view and visitor count was the same. Possible a link to your post was placed on twitter.
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Yes the counts were the same. I suspect it may have gone on Twitter and people were expecting it to be about a protest associated with the impeachment process as this was on the day that there were protests connected to the impeachment process in Congress.
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Regarding your post, could it be due to the number of protests surging around the world and your post has “protests “. Views from non WordPress subscribers or users are counted too (I confirmed this with WordPress support). I posted a Christmas vlog on 1 Dec written by a Chinese guest blogger who spread the word to her friends. Though they’re not WordPress users, their views counted and I similarly had “your stats are booming…” message from WordPress!
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I think you may be right. These views came from the USA and perhaps people were looking for protest news about the impeachment vote in Congress. They all came for Twitter.
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Fellow blogger JD found the answer. It was a post on Twitter that shared the link. The person who posted is a news journalist and also an equestrian and that is where all the action came from.
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I’m glad you found the answer 😊
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Awww, it looks like I’m late to the party. 😦
I have a Twitter account, so I was gonna look into it for you. But at least you got some answers. And congrats on the stats! 🙂
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Thank you Gayle. It was an interesting but temporary blip.
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That’s interesting, never heard of this before and I don’t do Twitter either. Hmm.. congrats on the stats though!
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Never happened but congratulations on the number 😉🎉🎊
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Yep, had that happen last week. My sister rolled her eyes and said, “Spam.”
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Another blogger said it was bots. I would be interested to know what prompted it and what they hoped to achieve.
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Good question, as most of my hits were from India. Computers are strange beasts. LOL!
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They are and the internet is a beast we really only have a small understanding of. Tip of the iceberg really.
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I got the answer JD found the Tweet that instigate it all. A news journalist who is also an equestrian put up the link. She has a million followers so that is where is came from.
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Wow! That’s legitimate. Cool.
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Probably was a ‘bot’. Congratulations on the number.
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Ah a ‘bot’. I think you may be right!
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Turns out it was from a Twitter feed. Fellow blogger JD found the feed and the link to my blog post was put up by a news journalist who is also an equestrian .
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That’s brilliant.
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No. That’s bizarre!
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