Organic Traffic going to Direct? How to find the ultimative proof
-
Hi there,
a few months ago we had a new site launch. As we operate internationally, visitors in different countries do get redirected to the specific country subfolder. e.x. domain.com/it
Since site launch. Direct Traffic is performing really really well(almost to good to be true) while organic is doing decent but not more. I'm quite sure, that a part of direct belongs to the organic channel. Though now I need strong arguments to fight against our own web development team.
Do you have any suggestions, where and how I can find strong evidence of my hypotheses?
Thanks in advance
-
I also recall (I think) Rand stating (in one of those top 10 type lists) that one of the big things for SEO 2015 would be the correct re-categorization of direct to search.
Effectively exactly what you intuitively think is correct.. that Direct traffic is over compensated for in respect of Search.
-
Hi James,
Certainly not the first time I have come across this, and the last time I directed someone to an article on Search Engine Land that goes through this. It might have some interesting insights in there for you.
Everyone knows that browsers don’t always report where visitors came from when they arrive at a website. When they don’t report where they were in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) referrer header, often the traffic is considered “Direct” — which really means, “we have no clue where they came from, maybe they typed the URL in or hit a bookmark.”
-Andy
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
-
Tracking Sessions for 301 Re-Direct in Google Analytics
Trying to track clicks for individual slides on a homepage slider. I cannot enter UTM codes on the slide links, just choose from a dropdown containing pages on my site (WordPress). So, I set-up 301 re-directs for all the slides. /slide1-redirect
Reporting & Analytics | | jbernier
/slide-2-redirect etc.. Will these redirect pages show up in GA? I cannot see them. I'm trying to create a Dashboard for Homepage slider clicks. John0 -
Google Search Console - > Google Search Analytic gives figure for google organic or adwords or combine of both?
Hi All, In Google Search Console -> In Search Analytics. I can see Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Position. I want to know all these 4 - Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Position gives information related to google organic only? or combine or google organic and google adwords? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | wright3350 -
Can you arrange Google Analytics source/medium traffic by percentage change?
I'm doing a year to year traffic audit for a client. I would like to analyze Google Analytics source/medium traffic by percent change. Is there a way to do this? Do I have to create a custom variable? 9BH70RO
Reporting & Analytics | | VanguardCommunications0 -
New e-commerce launched, drop in traffic
One of our clients launched a new e-commerce site and there was a significant (60%) drop in traffic in Google Analytics following the launch. We are about 10 days into the new site, and our suspicion is that the move has caused a decrease in their site authority which has lowered their search position. The old site had the store at sitename.com/store. The new site has a Shopify store at shop.sitename.com. There were very few external followed links to the store pages, so we thought that there would be little effect for overall site traffic by moving the store to a subdomain. Any recommendations for next steps on diagnosing the problem and working towards a solution?
Reporting & Analytics | | DesignHammer0 -
Mobile redirect causing traffic drop? Can I move analytics code to capture them as visitors before redirecting them?
Yesterday I implemented a mobile redirect as I don't have a mobile version of my site. As a result I've seen a drop in traffic which makes sense as my redirect script is at the top of the page. If I were to move the redirect script below the analytics code would that allow me to still track mobile users? Would this affect my bounce rate though?
Reporting & Analytics | | SamCUK0 -
Ok. I'm just going to cut loose with my stupid question. What is internal link equity? What distinguishes an internal link with equity from one without equity?
What distinguishes an internal link with equity from one without equity? Is there a limit to how many of these I want? What's the rule-of-thumb? Cheers, Wes
Reporting & Analytics | | wrconard0 -
Will 301 redirects (Same Domain) show as referral traffic in Analytics?
For an eCommerce site we have 301'd legacy product pages to new product pages. Is all that traffic going to show up as referral traffic from our own domain in Google Analytics? If so, is there any way to preserve original source/medium info or will all the source/medium info be our own domain since there is a 301 redirect?
Reporting & Analytics | | bozzie3111 -
Strange traffic - panda, penguin? Screenshots attached.
Hi, I'm unsure if I've been hit by penguin/panda. I've attached screenshots below. The first one is April 1st to today. The second is all of April and the 3rd is 1st June to today. The site was offline at the beginning of July which explains no traffic. My traffic took a dip though on April 6th which as I understand it wasn't a panda/penguin roll out? I then got hardly any traffic for May to mid June. Then the site was offline due to a server problem but when it came back on traffic was the highest it has ever been. Today however I am getting zero search engine traffic? I can't figure out what's going on. Can anyone shed any light on the issue? DTJXE DTJXE Dpj21 qHTpj
Reporting & Analytics | | SamCUK0