Changes to cookies, August 24 or 25? (organic search not being cookied?)
-
Hi folks.
We've seen a precipitous change in the referral data that we're able to gather from cookies. Specifically:
On August 24 or 25, traffic to our site that was cookied as coming from organic search dropped by ~25%, and traffic coming in with no referrer data at all (i.e., it appears to be "direct") rose by roughly the same amount.
As far as we can see, we haven't changed anything in our systems that would have caused this (we're not just mis-reading the cookie info), so I'm looking for external reasons.
Has anyone else seen this? Or have any ideas why it would happen?
-
Logs don't show any impact from bot traffic.
Here's some more detail:
1. Google Analytics shows that the volume of traffic from search is flat.
2. When people sign up for our product (SaaS tools for small businesses), our system captures referral information. The cookies, naturally, indicate when the user came from organic search. Sometimes the cookie shows no referral information, in which case we infer the user is either a direct visitor, or they've blocked cookies.
3. Starting August 24/25, the traffic we can determine as being "direct" spiked, and the traffic from "organic search" dropped by basically the same amount.
My belief is that the traffic, and the traffic composition, haven't changed. What's changed is the info that we are able to see in the cookie. i.e., if organic search traffic isn't being cookied, it will look to us like "direct."
What I wanted to rule out was: Has anyone else seen this in their own metrics lately? It looks like the answer is no, so I will deduce that it's not industry-wide, and that something is happening within our systems.
So the next question, with less reason to hope MOZzers will have an answer: Any guesses how this kind of problem happens?
If "organic search" traffic had fallen to 0, it would be clear that something somewhere broke completely. But since it only dipped, I'm trying to figure out how some of the data is being lost, while some of it gets through.
Thanks folks.
-
Hi Rob! How'd the check go? Clear anything up?
-
Interesting theory. I wouldn't think so, since it was a sharp decrease in organic search paired with a sharp increase on the very same day of "unreferred" traffic. But I'll check...
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
-
Phantom search results showing up in analytics
Hi, I'm getting these weird phantom search results showing up in my analytics account which is skewing my results. I have a wordpress site, and I do have some custom search results pages, but analytics is telling me these hits are coming from google- which I doubt. The end of the query string (&cat=plus-5-results) is not coming from a link created within my site. Anyone have any ideas? Failing that, would somebody be kind enough to explain how I can ignore these hits, but retain other, valid search result requests? Thanks reading! Will Screenshot%202019-05-16%20at%2022.32.10.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | madegood0 -
GA Internal Site Search Correct Query Parameter?
Hi Guys, Recently added GA internal site search to a sub-folder: http://tinyurl.com/jhm9cyl Just want to confirm would the query parameter be: /search/ Or different because it's a sub-folder? Cheers.
Reporting & Analytics | | jayoliverwright0 -
Why am i still seeing very recent organic kw traffic being reported in Analytics if G is now fully encrypted ?
Why am i still seeing very recent organic kw traffic being reported in Analytics if G is now fully encrypted ? Should it not all be 'Not Provided' now ? When this fully roles out if not already wont it be impossible to distinguish between brand and non brand kw ? Cheers Dan
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
Search Traffic Drops Before It Improves?
I'm working on a site with tons of great, useful content....the owners of the site implemented a new site layout and design (complete overhaul) and they were lacking basics such as meta descriptions, 301 redirects, and, shockingly, they had the same Title tag for every single page on a site with thousands of unique how-to articles. Unsurprisingly their traffic dropped by about 300%. They generate most of their traffic from people learning how to build stairs, how to install crown molding, and other related matters. Beginning last Thursday I've been performing basic on-site SEO, things like having unique titles for each page and similar tasks. The week from Thursday when I began until yesterday (Wednesday), Google traffic dropped -29.73% - 17,715 vs 25,210 I believe this is a normal part of the "Google Shuffle" -- does anyone have a Matt Cutts link or similar proof that this is a normal part of the process?
Reporting & Analytics | | wattssw0 -
Image Search Keyword Tracking With Google Analytics
Does anyone know how to track keywords for your images in Google, Yahoo, Bing (/imgres)?
Reporting & Analytics | | Melia0 -
Should I delete a page that gets search traffic, that I don't care about?
I have a page on my site that consistently gets traffic, every month. Googlers seems to love it. But I don't like it at all. Webmaster tools shows that google allows us a certain number of search impressions each day. - it flatlines, they are limiting the impressions we get. We also getthe same number of clickthroughs each day. So my question is for anyone who has this same experience, who may have experimented by deleting a page you don't care about. Did you just lose that number of clicks each day or did other pages on your site get displayed and clicked through instead?
Reporting & Analytics | | loopyal0 -
If I change the URL of a page, but the old page canonicalizes to the new, do I need to change my Analytics goals to get data?
I changed the URLs of some pages recently (because the same thing that affects the internal anchor text also affects the URL - grr...) but considered it not a big deal because even if I looked at the source code of the old URL, the canonical tag was now pointing to the new one. The question is - if I had URL destination goals set up for those URLs in Google Anlaytics, do I now have to change them? Or does Google somehow know that anyone getting to the new URL is the equivalent of someone getting to the old URL because of the canonical tag that exists on the old URL source code? I still do see goal conversions for some of the old URLs even since I changed them - but it could be that people are still somehow finding the old URL somewhere - or that Google only reindexed it a week or so after I made the change. Any light to shed? Thanks in advance, Aviva B
Reporting & Analytics | | debi_zyx0 -
Get Stats on Search Box Usage, Using Google Analytics?
Let me preface this by first saying I am NOT using the Google Adsense Search feature. The question I am asking is pertaining to the standard search box that comes already coded in most .php blogs. In the Google Analytics, is there a way to tell how many people are searching using the search box? I've looked through the navigation and pathway options in analytics and I don't seem to see anything that definitively points to the number of people using the search box but, perhaps, I am overlooking it. Any insight?
Reporting & Analytics | | ChristineCadena0
