Google’s search advocate, John Mueller, was at hand to provide helpful advice to a Redditor whose site was experiencing fluctuations they believed were significant, saying not to overreact to minor fluctuations when analyzing site performance data.
Mueller advises on traffic fluctuations
Search Engine Journal writer Matt G. Southern picked up on the Reddit conversation between a website owner and Google’s John Mueller, which resonates with many small independent site owners during these unpredictable times of volatile ranking fluctuations.
Mueller offered reassuring advice to the site owner regarding the traffic fluctuations they were experiencing, including some wise words about maintaining perspective when analyzing your site’s performance metrics.
The Redditor’s question:
Mueller’s response focused on the number of overall clicks the site was receiving, saying because they were small, any change would appear drastic:
- “The clicks are just very small numbers, so any change by one or two will look like a big spike.”
To explain his point, Mueller referenced the “Strong Law of Small Numbers” mathematical concept, saying:
- “There aren’t enough small numbers to meet the many demands made of them; basically, you can’t make a smooth graph if the individual steps are so big.”
He linked his reply to the Wikipedia explanation:
- “In mathematics, the “strong law of small numbers” is the humorous law that proclaims there aren’t enough small numbers to meet the many demands made of them.”
- “In other words, any given small number appears in far more contexts than may seem reasonable, leading to many apparently surprising coincidences in mathematics, simply because small numbers appear so often and yet are so few.”
Mueller’s Reddit reply in full:
Small numbers appear disproportionately significant
Mueller’s point was that small click-through numbers make minor fluctuations in a site’s performance metrics appear larger.
While minor traffic fluctuations for website sites with hundreds of daily visitors wouldn’t register or cause the concern the Redditor was experiencing.
Mueller explained this in his reply:
- “You’ll note this is much less visible in impressions, partially because you’re looking at average values of 150’ish, where a handful more or less doesn’t trigger a big spike.”
