Our Firefox organic traffic seems to have been re-allocated to direct - anyone know why?!

[HubMDP]

In Google Analytic, the majority of organic traffic via Firefox browsers to one of our websites suddenly dropped off, and an immediate lift in direct traffic via Firefox browsers appeared.

This trend has continued ever since. I've searched to find Firefox releases that might have affected it (eg. security/cookie settings), but haven't been able to find anything, or talk of this happening to other people, and the anomaly doesn't appear in our other website analytics either...anyone have any ideas?!

The attached GA graphs show Firefox browser versions 21.0 and 22.0, but it's the same story across all versions. (You can also see that I'd also filtered out traffic via IOS 6 and Android 4 operating systems to remove any effect from these known issues).

Thanks for any help that you can offer!

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[Ben_Alvord]

I was curious about this, so I poked around in the metrics of some of the websites I work on, to see if I could find anything similar (big increase in Firefox (direct) traffic).  I did find that about 80% of all Firefox traffic from mobile devices was showing up as (direct) traffic.

The sites I work on get very little of this type of traffic, so I hadn't really noticed that previously.  In the data I looked at, it didn't really seem like that recent of a change, however.  Maybe you've had a recent surge in mobile traffic?  I think Firefox mobile traffic is typically from Android devices.

[BlueprintMarketing]

that makes a lot of sense browsers switching to SSL by default I bet by now it's more than just Safari on iPhone's doing it.

Thank you EGOL

sincerely,

Thomas

[EGOL]

Just read how Apple has been blocking lots of search query data and making it look like "direct".  This explains why my direct data was ramping up in 2012.

http://searchengineland.com/ios-6-removes-all-google-search-referer-data-134560

[BlueprintMarketing]

I agree with you I think Google is messing with the data quite a bit and looking at Google analytics everything you say makes sense.

I still see the big drop however the drop is not as intense for instance it shows approximately twice as many visitors as hubspot is showing.

The GA and kiss metrics version of what I can see is dramatic in the middle of July as well.

For instance kiss metrics shows a fall on July 4 where hubspot shows what is seen above.

I think Google could be blocking quite a bit of data coming out.

sincerely,

Thomas

[EGOL]

Mine looks similar to that.... but my drop did not occur until July and was not as dramatic as is shown on your chart.

Something is going on.  Google is messing with the data.

[BlueprintMarketing]

you are absolutely right. Thank you for having me do that in fact as you can see direct traffic and organic traffic has fallen off a cliff this shows the beginning of June until today.

So the traffic went from approximately 20,000 visitors a day down to approximately 2000 visitors a day.

Almost all of it was direct traffic before does this match with what you had seen?

As far as the amount of direct verse organic?

thank you sincerely,

Thomas

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[EGOL]

Go back one month.  I bet you had a lot of direct in mid July that dropped in late July or the first week of August.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Here is a general outlook from HubSpot this is a site I'm working on.

The blue equals direct traffic the green equals organic search the orange equals referral and yellow social media.

When I go back in my analytics I get about the same portion of organic verse direct.

Is this something that looks odd to you or do you think this is in line with what you see as well?

I'm sorry I cannot show the numbers for you I hope you guys understand.

Sincerely,

Thomas

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[EGOL]

I am using Clicky.com for my analytics.   My direct traffic started an unreasonable climb over one year ago.  Showed a huge drop in early August but now is back on an unreasonable power climb.    It has to be google.  I know its not bots or course management systsms.  And, there is no other reason for me to be getting that much traffic from direct visitors - although I do have a lot of direct.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi EGOL you bring up a great point I just checked my  Google Analytics and found the exact same thing.

I agree it has to be a change with Google in fact I have almost 100% direct traffic via GA but HubSpot shows me much more it must be Google changing things however check out hubspot and you'll see what I mean.

Sincerely,

Thomas

[EGOL]

I am getting amazing amounts of this "direct" traffic.

It has to be smoke from Google.

[BlueprintMarketing]

it appears  this is very common.

if I were you I would set up accounts with alternate analytics providers and see what you get.

https://www.kissmetrics.com/

Or

https://mixpanel.com/

mix panel does not cost anything to use when starting out. I would utilize them as a backup to Google analytics

if you're using WordPress a free plug-in is available here

https://github.com/zippykid/mixpanel-wordpress

a alternative is to use https://segment.io/ either with Google analytics or without it this will allow you much more granular control over GA or whatever analytics provider you choose.

To fix this problem though I would

Here's some more information on how to fix this

http://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/inaccurate-google-analytics-traffic-sources

if you scroll down in this link and you will see someone talking about JavaScript errors in Firefox on Windows 8

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/analytics/QUgzuaabqVs

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2558811?hl=en

http://www.roirevolution.com/blog/2009/04/6-tools-you-can-use-to-troubleshoot-google-analytics-yourself.php

One recommendation is to set up campaigns and use URL builder

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en-GB&rd=1

sincerely,

Thomas