Changes to cookies, August 24 or 25? (organic search not being cookied?)
-
Hi folks.
We've seen a precipitous change in the referral data that we're able to gather from cookies. Specifically:
On August 24 or 25, traffic to our site that was cookied as coming from organic search dropped by ~25%, and traffic coming in with no referrer data at all (i.e., it appears to be "direct") rose by roughly the same amount.
As far as we can see, we haven't changed anything in our systems that would have caused this (we're not just mis-reading the cookie info), so I'm looking for external reasons.
Has anyone else seen this? Or have any ideas why it would happen?
-
Logs don't show any impact from bot traffic.
Here's some more detail:
1. Google Analytics shows that the volume of traffic from search is flat.
2. When people sign up for our product (SaaS tools for small businesses), our system captures referral information. The cookies, naturally, indicate when the user came from organic search. Sometimes the cookie shows no referral information, in which case we infer the user is either a direct visitor, or they've blocked cookies.
3. Starting August 24/25, the traffic we can determine as being "direct" spiked, and the traffic from "organic search" dropped by basically the same amount.
My belief is that the traffic, and the traffic composition, haven't changed. What's changed is the info that we are able to see in the cookie. i.e., if organic search traffic isn't being cookied, it will look to us like "direct."
What I wanted to rule out was: Has anyone else seen this in their own metrics lately? It looks like the answer is no, so I will deduce that it's not industry-wide, and that something is happening within our systems.
So the next question, with less reason to hope MOZzers will have an answer: Any guesses how this kind of problem happens?
If "organic search" traffic had fallen to 0, it would be clear that something somewhere broke completely. But since it only dipped, I'm trying to figure out how some of the data is being lost, while some of it gets through.
Thanks folks.
-
Hi Rob! How'd the check go? Clear anything up?
-
Interesting theory. I wouldn't think so, since it was a sharp decrease in organic search paired with a sharp increase on the very same day of "unreferred" traffic. But I'll check...
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
-
Domain change from .co.uk to .com - do you add .com to the referral exclusion in GA?
Hi Mozzers, Just wanted to double check that when a website domain changes from .co.uk to .com - do you add .com to the referral exclusion in GA? Do you also keep the .co.uk version in the list too? I have updated the property settings to .com Thanks Anthony
Reporting & Analytics | | Tone_Agency0 -
Organic impression limit. Has anyone seen this before or could give some insight?
Hey, I've been trying to grow my sites organic traffic but its like I've hit an organic cap on impressions. The site is about 4 months old and this period that I hit its limit I did not do any social shares or upload any new content. But is this normal? The site did get a Facebook like on the 26th of August. 3tzF2Cp
Reporting & Analytics | | onlinegusto0 -
Hi - I have a beginner question about organic search results dropping to zero
Really confused about a site I'm getting going on SEO with... I'm new to SEO, but I've found that the organic search results for princessdesign.co.uk have dropped to zero dramatically. I'm concerned that I've missed something and hope that somebody out there might be able to help? Any input greatly appreciated 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | Gokart0 -
Why my WMT is showing more clicks than my Google Analytics Organic Search Traffic?
Hello Everybody, Can somebody help me figure out this puzzle: My WMT is showing 6000 clicks, while my Organic Traffic in Google Analytics is showing only 3500 daily ... how is that possible? Best Regards
Reporting & Analytics | | Muhammad_Jabali0 -
My Google Webmaster Search Queries are 0??!!
For the past 2 days Google Webmaster has recorded 0 search queries to my site, but traffic seems stable. Any ideas about why this is happening and what I should do about it? Or is it a Google glitch I should not be concerned about (hoping for this option)
Reporting & Analytics | | theLotter0 -
How long until changes are reflected in Google
I updated my site to remove duplicate titles and also include the rel=
Reporting & Analytics | | MartinSpence46
"next" etc tags. When can I expect to see these reflected in Google andSEOMoz? I also found out I should update my sitemap every month, when will Google pick up the new sitemap? Sorry if these are basic questions, new to the whole world of SEO. Thanks M0 -
Does Google Analytics parse visits from search apps?
Does anyone know if Google Analytics reports visits to your website differently from individual search apps like Google and Bing? Or do they just treat them the same as any other keyword visit from Google or Bing search engine? I suppose the end result is probably the same as in the Google app you're using Google so it would just be a different access point versus a new tool. I'm just curious if there is a way to see how many Mobile visits are coming from the apps vs the browser. For me personally I have the Google and Bing iOS apps installed but rarely use them, opting for the Safari search bar 99% of the time.
Reporting & Analytics | | nsauser0 -
Why does this domain never pass 150 organic visits from Google?
Hello, The domain http://bit.ly/fwTEsT has been out there for one year, it has about half million indexed pages. We made a lot of changes that could affect SEO and I don't know if Google likes it but the one thing it's sure is that in one whole year the organic visits from Google never got pass 150 visits per day. We've got about 2000 PPC visits but organic don't go up. I'd like to know what our main errors would be so we can focus more on fixing them. Thank you, Alexandru.
Reporting & Analytics | | elwebmaster0