[EN] Traffic source, Direct traffic and 'own domain'

Traffic source, difference between 'Direct Traffic' and 'Own Domain'

The issue with 'direct traffic'

Every marketer who works with web analytics is familiar with the issue of 'Direct Traffic'.

In many web analytics tools, the label for the traffic source 'Direct Traffic' is used for any traffic where the analytics tool cannot determine the original referrer ('source of the click'), so a better name would be 'Unknown' or 'Undefined'.

Not knowing how a user landed on your website poses a significant challenge for marketers and makes it difficult to base decisions about web site visits. They should be based on solid web analytics data and not guesswork.

Snoobi Analytics and 'direct traffic'

Snoobi Analytics has always separated the 'Direct Traffic' from the real 'Unknown', thus offering some more clarity.

Reviewing the raw data, we collect from the websites that use Snoobi Analytics, we determined that there is at least one situation where we can reduce the 'Unknown'. That is the situation where the previous page was the own website, but the analytics session has timed out or was otherwise cancelled. That traffic type is called 'Own Domain'.

What remains is the actual 'Direct Traffic'. This would better be named 'Unknown', since it certainly is not all 'Direct', but we decided to keep that wording to maintain compatibility for marketers who are familiar with other analytics tools such as Google Analytics.

How is 'own domain' determined?

Snoobi Analytics classifies 'Own domain' under the following conditions:

• The analytics session was restarted from a page on your own website after the standard or extended analytics session timed-out. This can happen when users do not close the browser or browser tab or when (for intranet use) the browser start page is not a tracked page.
• The analytics session started from a page on your own website; for instance, when the Snoobi tracking code is not present on all pages.
• The Snoobi account contains multiple domains, and users regularly navigate between more than one domain within the group of domains that is analyzed by a single Snoobi Analytics account.

Where 'Own domain' is visible and how it can be used

Starting with the V2024-2 release of Snoobi Analytics, most of what previously was classified as 'Unknown' will be classified as 'Own domain' if we have information about the original referrer. 

Since Snoobi maintains databases of all raw collected data that means we can recalculate and reclassify each visitor session based on the correct information.

'Own domain' will then be visible in all panels where Traffic Source can be selected. Such as the 'Traffic Source' panel. 

'Own domain' is also added to the Segmentation options, so it becomes possible to filter all sessions based on this classification and the full session route can have 'Own domain' as a starting point of the session.

We intend to add information about the full own url that initiated a user session in this manner in a future release. But we first need to recalculate all Snoobi accounts with this new referrer information.

More background on 'referrer'

The 'referrer' (meaning the originating web page before the current page), is not always clearly defined. As with all analytics tracking that happens as a hand-over of data between two different systems some data may be lost or even changed.  So, any web analyst should never rely on the referrer information being 100%, as also url parameters can be changed or completely removed. That also impacts metrics that rely on url-parameters to be present in the data stream for analytics.

Here are some reasons where a browser referrer may be missing or incorrect:

Privacy settings and browser configurations

• Privacy Features: Most browsers have privacy features such as “Do Not Track” or “Enhanced Tracking Protection”, which can strip the referrer information.
• Incognito/Private Browsing Mode: Browsers may limit or alter the referrer information when in private browsing mode.
• Referrer Policy Configuration: sites can specify a referrer policy (e.g., no-referrer, origin, same-origin) that controls how much referrer information is sent.
• Browser Extensions: Some browser extensions specifically block or modify referrer information as a privacy measure.
• Your analytics script may not run in the first page of a visitor/user on your site, for instance because they ignore a cookie statement and no analytics is possible. We have created a specific piece of code that you can use. See this Knowledgebase article.

Http header of the originating page, javascript or meta tag

• Referrer Policy Header: Websites can specify a Referrer-Policy header that determines what information to send. For example, no-referrer will prevent any referrer information from being sent.
• HTTP to HTTPS Redirection: Browsers generally do not send referrer information when navigating from an HTTP site to an HTTPS site to protect user privacy.
• JavaScript Modifications: Scripts on the page can modify or remove the referrer information before sending it.
• HTML Meta Tags: The <meta name="referrer" content="..."> tag in HTML can influence the referrer behavior

Proxies and intermediaries, cross-site navigation

• Proxies or VPNs: If the user is accessing the site through a proxy or VPN, the referrer information might be altered or stripped.
• Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): CDNs or other intermediaries can have the ability to modify the referrer information.
• Third-Party Navigation: When navigating to a site from a third-party application or a different context (like email clients, mobile or social media apps), the referrer might be missing or altered.
• Cross-Domain Restrictions: Browsers can limit referrer information when moving between different domains for security and privacy reasons.
• Multiple Redirects: If there are multiple redirects before landing on the destination, referrer information may be lost or altered in the process.

And this is only a summary - there can be many more reasons why referrer information is not 100% reliable.