Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Abnormally High Direct Traffic Volume
-
We have abnormally high amounts of direct traffic to our site. It's comprising over half of all web traffic while organic is second with considerably less. From there the volume decreases amongst other channels.
I've never seen such a huge proportion of traffic being attributed the Direct. Does anyone know how to test this or see if there is an error in Google Analytics reporting?
-
This post is deleted! -
@graceflack-0
Hi!
Check out this article which runs down a lot of the common reasons for traffic being labeled direct when it is not really and details steps to take:https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/how-to-reduce-direct-traffic-in-google-analytics/
Hope it 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
-
Huge Drop in Direct Traffic in G4
Our direct traffic dropped 50% in October. Is anyone else seeing a drop in direct traffic in October in G4? It hasn't shifted to another source or unassigned it's just gone. Has anyone else experienced this and what might be the reasons?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseninja1 -
Zero '0' Total Visits
Hi. One of the properties in our account has been reporting zero '0' total visits for the past few weeks. The other properties aren't affected. Is there a reason for this or is this an issue on the Moz side of things. Thanks!Moz Zero Visits.PNG
Reporting & Analytics | | rh-digi0 -
Unsolved MOZ API to Google Data Studio
Dopes MOZ have anything like this? https://www.semrush.com/features/google-data-studio-connector/
Product Support | | WebMarkets0 -
Unsolved Can you accurately track lead source when using a cookie consent system?
With the introduction of cookie consent for third party analytics cookies, is it still possible to accurately track traffic source? Legally, you can't create a tracking cookie for platforms like Analytics until consent is given. So...the associated Javascript tags can't fire. Surely this means you can't collect any of the information on the user's original source... Can anyone shed any light on this conundrum....greatly appreciated.
Reporting & Analytics | | Marketing-EdJones0 -
What does 'Safari (in-app)' mean in Google Analytics browser traffic?
Hi, can anyone explain what 'Safari (in-app)' refers to in my browser sources? Also, it has a very high bounce rate - any ideas why?
Reporting & Analytics | | b4cab1 -
Help Blocking Crawlers. Huge Spike in "Direct Visits" with 96% Bounce Rate & Low Pages/Visit.
Hello, I'm hoping one of you search geniuses can help me. We have a successful client who started seeing a HUGE spike in direct visits as reported by Google Analytics. This traffic now represents approximately 70% of all website traffic. These "direct visits" have a bounce rate of 96%+ and only 1-2 pages/visit. This is skewing our analytics in a big way and rendering them pretty much useless. I suspect this is some sort of crawler activity but we have no access to the server log files to verify this or identify the culprit. The client's site is on a GoDaddy Managed WordPress hosting account. The way I see it, there are a couple of possibilities.
Reporting & Analytics | | EricFish
1.) Our client's competitors are scraping the site on a regular basis to stay on top of site modifications, keyword emphasis, etc. It seems like whenever we make meaningful changes to the site, one of their competitors does a knock-off a few days later. Hmmm. 2.) Our client's competitors have this crawler hitting the site thousands of times a day to raise bounce rates and decrease the average time on site, which could like have an negative impact on SEO. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe Google is going to reward sites with 90% bounce rates, 1-2 pages/visit and an 18 second average time on site. The bottom line is that we need to identify these bogus "direct visits" and find a way to block them. I've seen several WordPress plugins that claim to help with this but I certainly don't want to block valid crawlers, especially Google, from accessing the site. If someone out there could please weigh in on this and help us resolve the issue, I'd really appreciate it. Heck, I'll even name my third-born after you. Thanks for your help. Eric0 -
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
Reporting & Analytics | | RASEO1 -
Adwords start Organic traffic SIGNIFICANTLY drops
I hope someone can give me some insight here, or at least point me in the right direction. As of September 1 we are running Adwords. We are seeing an alarming drop in our organic traffic since then. It's almost like Adwords is cannibalizing organic. August/September Paid 116/847 Organic 648/178 We've looked at why the Organic could have dropped (penalties, site function issues, etc.) and have found nothing unusual. Can someone give me a reason why this might be happening, Why such a dramatic decrease just as adwords is started. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Britewave0