Referral Traffic from Google
-
Hello, I have a question about my company's new website. I've worked in SEO and studied Google Analytics results for a few years now but have never really come across something like this.
I started in this position in January of this year and when I started breaking down the traffic sources in Google Analytics, I noticed most of the traffic was coming from Google.com as a referral source. I had never seen Google.com as a referral source before so I looked into options for what it could be. It was not a paid ad and our organic traffic was coming through in Analytics, Before I could get any further, our new website was launched (we switched CRM's to WordPress) and the referral traffic from google went from 2,966 in January of 2015 to 22 in February 2015. for more comparison, in February of 2014, the referral traffic from Google was 2,496.
I expected a drop when we switched CRM's but we correctly re-directed all pages and created a new sitemap and our organic traffic is up since the switch (not enough to cover drop in referral). I thought at first this had to do with our Google sellers account being de-activated when we made the switch, but I quickly fixed this over a month ago and no change.
I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen Google.com come through as a referral source in Google Analytics and if they we're able to figure out what it actually was. This would be a great help!
Thank you,
Alex
-
Not saying that is it 100% but that could be a major part of the issue. I would talk with the agency running the PPC and let them know the issue and have them pair the AdWords and Analytics accounts.
-
No, unfortunately not. We are an agency, however the client has hired someone else to run their PPC campaign so we don't have their campaign data linked to GA.
-
Hmmm, is your adwords account hooked up to your analytics account?
Can you click into the results going to the homepage and set that secondary dimension to country? That should be a possibility, a location of some kind.
-
Hi Kate, yes there are 1,374 sessions.
Half of them are going to the homepage "/"
Then there are around 350 going to promo single URL pages from PPC campaigns (so I understand the reason for those).
Around 100 are going to the "About Us" and "contact us" pages. Could these be ad extensions?
-
Is there much traffic coming in this way? The above would suggest the referral is from the google.co.uk homepage, is not passing the referral page, or is from something internal as /url isn't a thing. I've seen all of this before, so you are not going nuts, but I don't have a concise answer. I can tell you that your search traffic should be going to organic and this should be something like news, images, or another google property. Most likely it's traffic that is blocking referral info.
So I am hoping it's not much traffic. Where is the traffic going? Set that secondary dimension to landing page and let me know.
-
Hi Kate,
I found this forum stream - we're having a similar situation. I tried your suggestion. Our top referrer is Google.co.uk. When I add the secondary dimension "Full Referrer" It says:
1. "/" google.co.uk/
2. "(not set)" google.co.uk
3. "/url" google.co.uk/url
-
My answer was going to be much like Dirks. There are some Google properties that send traffic as referral, not as search. Can you take a look at the referral traffic from google.com and add "Full Referrer" as a Secondary Dimension and let us know what that is?
-
Thanks for help DC! I looked into both your suggestions, and our image search has dropped but not nearly enough to account for the drop in traffic and I looked into where most of the referral traffic from Google was coming from and it was the US.
Anyone else have any ideas on where the referral traffic from Google would have been coming from and why it dropped off the face of the earth with the new site when everything else has gone up?
Thank you!
-
In countries where the "old" image search is still used (like Germany) - it is counted as Referral traffic rather than search traffic (not sure why). You could check in Webmastertools what your % of image search is (and compare January & February)
You could also try to check the landing pages report for this referral traffic and compare this with the landingpages in Acquisition >Search Engine Optimisation > Landingpages with secondary dimension "Google Property"
rgds,
Dirk
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
-
Google Analytics Numbers Are Weird
Hi, I'm having a strange problem from past one month. My website gets about 10k pageviews a month with an average bounce rate of 50%. Lately, I observed a strange thing. The avg time on page of visitors from selected countries is less than 1 second and the bounce rate is zero!! How is this possible? This is happening from past one month and it would be really helpful if you guys could tell me what exactly is happening?? Ive attached a screenshot for better understanding. website url : https://www.specbee.com/ fIAXXgF 3zQuBAN
Reporting & Analytics | | ganesh10 -
Bot Traffic Higher Than Unfiltered?
We filtered bot traffic from one of our Google Analytics accounts and traffic is higher than with the unfiltered view. Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this?
Reporting & Analytics | | Leithmarketing0 -
Google Tag Assistant for Chrome
I'm using the Google Tag Assistant for Chrome, and I noticed something really weird. No matter what pages I look at, the same two GA tags show up. It's weird. You can see the tag that is "working", and then there are two repeats. For example, when I look at this page, I see the GA tag that is working and then all the remarketing tags. Then I see UA-36732895-1 repeated twice. Anyone have any idea what this is? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | PGD20110 -
Blended results in google ???
I am a little confused about my search results. My ranking on google is displayed as #42. HOWEVER, I am #1 in the LOCAL results... what does that mean? Am I really #42? or am I #1 because local is listed over the organic results?
Reporting & Analytics | | drshahprs0 -
Site Crash Effect On Traffic
All, I manage a site that unfortunately crashed due to a server issue in late October for about 3 hours. Prior to the crash, traffic was the best it had ever been in the 3+ year history of the site. As you might expect, since the crash traffic has gone gradually down and is now about 15% off pre-crash numbers. I understand that when a site crashes, it disrupts the crawling process and can disrupt traffic (in my case rich snippets were thrown off for days) but would love to hear experiences any of you have had in similar situations. How much did traffic drop after a crash? When did it recover? Other thoughts? Thanks, John
Reporting & Analytics | | JSOC0 -
How to create an advanced segmentation for Google+?
Hey Mozzers, I have a question regarding Google Analytics. The problem: I have created advanced segments for Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. They all work fine... Now I am trying to create something similar for Google+ (since soon we are launching a campaign for it and I want to be able to check the evolution fast and effective). My advanced segments look like: Include -> Source -> Matching RegExp -> (Facebook|Youtube|Twitter) How should the Google+ be inserted into the group? I know this question might be easy for some advanced Analytics users but I am stuck at this point. Any help appreciated! Thanks in advance! Istvan
Reporting & Analytics | | Keszi0 -
Backlinks on Google Webmaster Tools
As I was reviewing my Google Webmaster tools, I notices a major drop in the number of back links. It used to show over 4,500 links to my site yet the other day it dropped down to 41. None of the directories I've submitted to are showing, nor any blog comments I've posted. Since then, my SEO traffic has started to drop for some keywords. Anyone know why?
Reporting & Analytics | | MikeAndres0 -
Organic search on google
Hi there, pl take a look at this link, there is a section which says shared results and has a star against two agencies and once article. can pl someone let me know what those starts are and how to get them? Thank you 🙂 so sorry - the link is http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=digital+mareketing+agency+los+angeles Vijay
Reporting & Analytics | | vijayvasu0