Google Analytics - Referral Traffic Question
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How Google Analytics determine that some particular web site referred traffic if there is no back link on that site?
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Referrals are a header. It doesn't matter if GA is on the site.
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Are you sure there's not a link to your site on the referring site? How are you checking?
Google Analytics will be capturing the source location from the referer set in the http header when someone visits your site.
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The referral is something that is passed by the user's browser when they visit your site, so even if the link is in a forum or somewhere that Google can't access, Analytics can still see whatever is reported by the user's browser.
The wikipedia article on HTTP referer is a good one to read for a more detailed explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer
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Google Analytics can only determine referred traffic if a site has Google Analytics installed on it. Sites that do not have GA installed will not be able to see any of these stats.
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