the pattern may be that there is no pattern--or there is a pattern but no discernable reason for the pattern--views are consistent and then they dip unexpectedly and then they return to what they were before--almost like a random generator determines when to cause a dip and then remove the dip so no one thinks it's on purpose which I think it is

in other words don't look for a discernable reason for why any story does well or not well but take a wide angle view and just chart the peaks and valleys and see if the graph shows a pattern