What is Responsible for All My "Direct" Traffic?
-
We have a broad content site - the majority of our traffic overall comes in via deep links.Google analytics consistently shows 17-20% of daily traffic under the "direct" bucket, with the rest of the traffic about equally split between Referring sites and Organic search.However, if we look at the specific content in the "direct" bucket, the URLs that are being hit do tend to mirror rather closely the Search traffic. The close mapping to our Search traffic doesn't seem to make much sense - while some of it is probably bookmarks, it seems doubtful that that could be responsible for more than, say, 20% of this direct traffici based on the # of pages and types of pages (many of the pages that do well in search are honestly not ones that someone would be likely to bookmark). The traffic reported by google as "direct" for a given day tracks a lot closer to Search than Referral URLs (which tend to be he more viral content on our site). Any idea what could be causing this traffic to show as Direct? Do people tend to bookmark pages while doing searches to come back to them or something? THANKS everyone for the responses. Still not quite sure what it is, continuing to look into it, particularly technical issues that the link to the Avinash post might prove very helpful for
-
I would double check and make sure that all your campaigns: Email, Bing/other networks PPC & Retargeting ads etc. All have Google's utm parameters setup on them. These are all areas that webmasters tend to overlook. The PPC ads tend to still be listed under organic search, but you can't segment out the paid or non-paid Bing (other network PPC) traffic without the tracking installed. Here is a great blog post that Avinash wrote on tracking direct traffic correctly. I would start here and make sure you have everything setup correctly before looking for other nuances. http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2010/09/excellent-web-analytics-tip-analyze-direct-traffic.html
-
I'm curious about this too as I get a lot of "direct traffic." I know for a fact that my content is shared via Twitter using a lot of different URL shorteners. I'm guessing (and trying to determine as fact or fiction) that the clicks on the links result in "direct traffic" showing up in Google Analytics. With my domain name - itinerantentrepreneur.com - which I can barely spell most of the time, I seriously doubt people are typing it in by hand And yes, I purchased an alternate domain name and pointed it to my site.
-
Would any of the pages that are getting a lot of direct traffic also be popular for a home page, or as a tab that someone would keep open on their browser? Also, I've seen some shopping carts strip referral data and Google then refers to them as (direct). Try to do a visitor audit and see if there are any pages or functions on your site that turn someone from being a search or referral visit into a direct visit.
-
Might also be type-ins and people using your site as a start-up page or desk-top email software.
-
Oh yeah - there's those pesky bots out there as well...
-
Robots?
-
Quite often when you see such a significant correlation between direct traffic URLs and search traffic, this is due to people who previously visited the site and bookmarked it, or got the link sent to them from someone who did.
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
-
Target="_blank" and referral acquisition data
Hi, Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! I have been reading up on this topic but there is some contradictory articles out there and I was hoping someone could clarify the latest practise for me. Website A links out to four of its partner websites.
Search Behavior | | AMA-DataSet
These links are using a target="_blank". When i look at the acquisition data for any of the partner websites there is zero referral data from site A.
I tested this wasn't an analytics bug by using the real time feature while clicking the partner links to see what had happened, and to also find the source, but I found that they are all being returned as a source direct. Ideally id like it to show the referrals once more for reporting purposes. Do I need to add extra google analytics parameters/functions to track the outbound links? or should this referral data be appearing correctly and it is something unrelated to the links themselves? or should I throw in the towel and drop the target blanks? Thank you in advance for your time.
Best Regards.0 -
My site traffic decreasing day by day
unfortunately its very bad for us . after panda update not affected any more but recent time . anybody can help us to fix the issue blog http://gurujobalert.com/ please thanks in advance
Search Behavior | | jenindras10 -
Tool Recommendations for Traffic Estimations
Hi Mozzers, Would appreciate your input on a tool (free or paid) that provides accurate information on the volume of traffic (paid and organic) that a site is getting every month. It would be nice if the tool can also provide data on the pages with most traffic (and number) page wise for a website? Cheers, SEO5..
Search Behavior | | SEO5Team0 -
GWMT - "Tag Site For Child Directed Treatment" Effect On Search / Rankings?
Hi All, We have a client who has been directed to tag their site for "Child Directed Treatment" in Webmaster tools to comply with AdExchange policies. The site is, generally speaking, directed at those between the ages of 13 and 16 along with their parents, but does NOT collect any data (No sign in, login, signups etc). You can find out more about the specific tag here (unfortunately not much more about it) https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/3221080?hl=en Our concern is that we have never heard of this specific tag, and our client is asking us to let them know if that this will have no effect on search traffic or ranking. I can't find much in the way of anyone who HAS implemented this tag and the effects it has had on their site. They are ad supported, receive millions of unique hits a month, and the majority of their traffic is from branded keywords. Would love to hear from anyone with ANY experience or thoughts on this process and what to be aware of. Your assistance is muchly appreciated.
Search Behavior | | SearchMarketers0 -
Real-time monitoring of web traffic
I used Woopra for the past year to monitor real time traffic to my websites but they recently dropped support for the desktop app and replaced it with a web app. As best I can tell the web app does not have the real-time alerts and other features that made the desktop app very compelling for me. Perhaps I don't fully understand how to use the new web app, but I don't find it particularly useful. Are there any other tools that provide good real-time monitoring of websites. Best,
Search Behavior | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
My Organic traffic always going down on Thursday and Friday
I am the Webmaster of this site http://muslim-academy.com/ Do not tell me some key files blocked by robots.It happened yesterday and applied the fix. My traffic always goes down on Thursday/Friday but it starts getting better from Saturday.Is it some EMD update or what the hell is it coming back and hitting me every week on these two days. Impressions with clicks also goes down.
Search Behavior | | csfarnsworth0 -
Surge in Yahoo! organic traffic?
Recently a domain I manage shot up in rankings for many industry related keywords in Yahoo! It only lasted for two days, but durring that time we saw about 300% increase in organic traffic. Durring that time we were spending a lot of money in paid ads. Can anyone explain the sudden surge in Yahoo! organic traffic and rankings? Could there have been traffic from our paid ads that tracked to organic search? We use Google analytics and an in-house tracking system that both showed the same trends.
Search Behavior | | SEOBodybuilder0 -
What is your traffic mix?
Read Rand's post on the blog about diversity in traffic source http://www.seomoz.org/blog/traffic-source-diversity-is-essential-for-successful-seo. I would be very interested to know from mozzers, how their experience has been with traffic share. While you answer, please be kind enough to share the following: 1. The niche of the website you wish to quote in your answer. 2. The means of promotion you use (SEO, Social Media, PPC, Display, Affiliate) 3. The reason you think you cited this example and do you think it has been a success or a failure or somewhere in the middle? Appreciate your time, thanks.
Search Behavior | | saibose0