Difference between Organic and Natural Traffic?
-
This is a pretty basic question, but I'm wondering if there is any meaningful difference between the terms Organic and Natural traffic? My assumption is that Organic traffic refers to traffic that comes in through search engines, whereas Natural traffic would also include people directly entering a URL, coming in through social referrals, and through links on other sites in addition to organic search. Is this correct, or are there other definitions for what these terms mean?
-
Being a word guy, I have a little bit different take on it:
'"Natural traffic" isn't a term that's widely used in SEO. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever actually heard it used--ever. "Organic traffic" derives from "organic search results", which were originally the algorithmic, non-paid search results before there was Local Search. Organic traffic is that traffic that comes to your site from non-paid, search results (and technically, also not from Local Search--although that might be debatable.)
-
Thanks, that's exactly the kind of clarification I was looking for.
-
Hi Shawn,
There is some discrepancy with details in regards to what each of these terms could be used for. Some see these terms as basically synonymous, as organic traffic does indeed refer to web traffic directed through search engines. Organic traffic can also include direct and social media links. Natural traffic can also be used to describe the same element, with links from search engines or any website. When traffic is generated through users directly entering a URL, this is usually referred to as “direct” traffic.
-
Yes you are correct with organic traffic this comes from organic searches and hits on your site, people entering the URL and going direct to your site is known as direct traffic, and then you have referral traffic which basically can come from any other site such as social referral, traffic from an app etc or even referrals from Google maps, shopping etc.
You could call organic / referral and direct all natural traffic if you was comparing it to fake traffic to your site or even search bot visits.
Hope that helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I can get hundreds of natural links from real estate agent sites, but should I?
I have a website that generate leads for real estate agents nationwide. I have an auto email that sends out the referral agreement and in the email I ask them to place a link to our website on their site somewhere to be a part of the program. I can get as many as 10-15 links in a few hours in every major city in the U.S. Most realtor websites have websites that are new, or haven't posted blogs and have a Moz domain score of 1 and trust score of 1. I have been thinking of only selecting websites with descent Moz rankings instead of having all agents link to me, even ones with a low moz score. Is it a bad idea to get a bunch of links from legitimate websites that have low Moz scores?
Industry News | | esv21110 -
Anyone have experience using BloomReach Organic?
Anyone interested in a reciprocal knowledge sharing opportunity? Does your team have experience with BloomReach Organic Services? We’re considering testing it out and are unsure of the long-term payoff given the substantial monthly fees for the SEO add-on. We're a pure e-commerce shop already using BloomReach’s merchandising solution so the technical integration is behind us.
Industry News | | znotes0 -
Traffic, rankings and own manual note in one interface, please :)
Hey guys, I really hope that such a tool exists out there. Here's the problem. My boss asked me to create a graph that shows the traffic, rankings and notes on our site updates in one place. Here's what I did I just made a screenshot of my Google analytics and rankings from RankTracker. Then I added it all in one Photoshop file and tried to combine them so that I can see if traffic drops coincided with keyword drops. Also, I added some manual notes about the updates on my site (like text updates on the homepage, etc). So, is there a tool that allows to combine Google traffic data with ranking data. Plus it should allow to add my own comments ? Here's the result of my crazy drawings so that you understand why I'm not happy about doing that in Photoshop 🙂 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_oX-XIT7OSCRC1jWUcxR3AwdkE/edit?usp=drive_web
Industry News | | VinceWicks0 -
How do I ascertain how/why a site appears higher/lower in search results, based on different search terms?
The site in question is www.bullethq.comHere are the search terms I used, and what position Bullethq.com appears in the SERP's: <colgroup><col width="188"><col width="58"><col width="95"></colgroup>
Industry News | | PeterConnor
| Search-term | Position | Page returned |
| irish payroll online | 5 | Home Page |
| irish payroll online software | 20 | Home Page |
| online irish payroll software | 20 | Home Page |
| online payroll | 75 | (Blog post) | Could someone be so kind as to help me figure this out?0 -
Indentify the reason for slow growth in traffic
Dear SEOMoz Team, We are leading B2B news portal in India. We have very slow growth in traffic what are possible causes and what are their solutions. Regards, Webmaster
Industry News | | anujsinghal0 -
How do I get our company press release more traffic?
We current gained a Major University as a client, for private cable operations. The boss would like a press release he made distributed. How would any of you go about this? Paid and Non paid services please. ; ) Thanks all!
Industry News | | smstv0 -
Just want to know if others have seen simliar results with Squidoo's organic visits
I have some old squidoo pages and yes they haven't been tended to as well as my other content that is outperforming it, and yes that could be why. So rather than asking why it is underperforming, I just want to know if anyone else has heard that Squidoo was in line for a spanking, or if anyone else has seen similar organic reductions. That way I know if it's me getting the spanking, or if it's squidoo. Thanks a mil. Tyler
Industry News | | TylerAbernethy0 -
I'm looking for solid internet usage / traffic data.
Hi there, In a week or two I'll give my first internet marketing presentation to a local business club. Ill walk them through the basics of what is happening online, and how both B2B and B2C business can use their online assets as marketing tools. I want some basic statistical data to back up my story, like: Current web usage distribution (social/search/media etc) Growth of Mobile vs Desktop Search Engines distribution (google bing yahoo msn) Online retail numbers To top it all off, I would also like to be able to show both worldwide and The Netherlands data. What is my best bet for some serious datamining ;)? Thanks in advance for helping me out!
Industry News | | rickdronkers0