Direct traffic decline

[SoulSurfer8]

I've noticed a few of our sites (tour, hotel, and local attraction) which are very established and reasonably high brand recognition that have experienced a significant decrease in branded traffic (-20-30% compared to same period from the previous year) the past few months. There have been no changes in offline marketing though we are seeing a slight decrease in visitor arrivals (-5%) and higher hotel room rates.

1. Is there a chance that Google's not set may be affecting direct traffic numbers?

2. Any other thoughts on how we can figure out why brand traffic is dipping?

Thanks

[MickEdwards]

• Has the level of (not provided) increased in rough proportion to the drop in branded traffic?
• Have you double checked you are ranking #1 (or same position) for all your branded keywords?
• Are alternative Adwords ads sitting above your results (apparently 40% of people don't know they are ads - which should now change with the distinct yellow 'Ad' icon)?
• Are you still strongly competing in your market?
• Is it just brand traffic, have you analysed other keywords?
• is your branding looking like 'keywords' used in anchor text - small chance Google might see it that way?

[FedeEinhorn]

Hey Omar,

Direct traffic isn't Google's traffic. Direct means when the user has no referrer, most likely accessing your site by typing the URL.

The "not-provided" accesses can be found under Traffic Sources -> Google Organic