Why do I get traffic from page 150+ in google?

[Puma]

Each week when I check my stats I see a weird trend. I will show first or second page in search engines in a key word such as " biggest slot bonuses" and get very little traffic but then get hit for something like " blackjack wager requirement " which is found on page 70 plus in Google many times.

Looking at stats I see I get hit for a large number of keywords that are found on anywhere from page 50-500 of Google.

My question is why are people coming to my site from that many pages into Google when I'm sure what they are looking for can be found on the first 3 pages of Google or any other leading search engine ?

[Squigley]

It could be a mix of webmasters doing keyword research, link buyers or traders, and affiliate programs. Other than that, I don't know.

[davemerry]

Squigley is right, it could be webmasters. Have you grilled down on analytics to find out where the visitors are from? How long they have stayed on the site? etc.

I haven't been heavily involved in SEO for a few good years now however a number of years back there was something we used to call the 'four phenomenon' in the office. For a period we noticed that sites were bouncing into position 4 of search engines for only minutes at a time and then going back to their original positions which could be anywhere in the top 200.

We came to the theory that Google would use number 4 as a user testing position, putting sites there and then testing how users would react to them, the bounce rate etc. and then collect the data for whatever search quality purpose they were looking at.

I know it's a long shot, but it could be fluctuations like that or something similar....

[Puma]

That's very possible because I noticed a jump in one keyword that went from page 184 to page 2 in a day. The funny part is I am seeing traffic turn into players so it doesn't seem to just be seo related searches.

[universal4]

Don't forget about spiders etc that troll through Google result pages and spider/follow links.

Also, don't forget about the scraped serp pages that are republished on other sites that could rank for a different keyword but show the original keyword link from a serp page.

Rick
Universal4