Until recently, I'd say that around 95% of traffic coming to my sites was from Google searches. However, in the last few days, that percentage has dropped and appears to have been replaced by "Direct" traffic according to Analytics. The other stats such as keywords hasn't really changed. What exactly does "direct" mean? Edit - one thing I thought of, if visitors had firewalls installed such as Symantec, would that strip the referrer information and make them appear direct, even though they probably found me through a search engine?
i think the direct if when they type your URL. maybe they memorize your site url or in their bookmars to go directly to your site.
I have always assumed that direct means either typed in or from a users favourites. Not sure about your firewall theory. I would have thought that might be calculated as an unknown referrer rather than a direct hit.
I was under it was the impression that it was any traffic that was not generated by a SE or a referring site. Which meant to me that it could be direct type ins of your URL or from Bookmarks in their favorites or anything that analytics can't figure out how it got there.
You may find the following help section useful: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60126 Basically, most members have answered the question already
I Wouldn't worry about it - infact you should be excited about it if anything. Users care enough about your site to remember it and manually type it in themselves to re-visit.
it's the best answer, but actually I think everyone should search for answers on the main source first: Google
Thanks for all the input. What surprises me though is that I don't have the sort of sites anyone would bookmark or visit more than once and a high percentage are new visitors. Strange.
I have the same issue. Before 5 Sep 2008, Search engine hit rate was greater tahn %93. But it is decreasing drematically. But the visits are almost same. For instance yesterday Google's rate became %60. This is impossible. I am not sure that, is it real decreane in seraches or mistake in Google Analytics? Is tehre any one that can help us?
I have the complete opposite issue! The total traffic to the site has increased tremendously, however the direct traffic numbers are way down. Check it out: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=12267268 Any help appreciated.
I've never seen a google analytics account (and I've seen quite a few) where the direct traffic reported didn't look unfeasibly high. I think a lot of things get reported as 'direct' when google simply can't resolve the source of the traffic.
It is really confusing, How it can change just in reverse order. If you get answer for this, Let us know.
In Google Analytics, this means traffic that's either typed in directly into the address bar or it has been Bookmarked/Favorited. As a result, usually the bulk of "direct" traffic goes to the Home Page.
Thanks for great, it really help me to find out what mission in my traffic report... thanks so much...
It will show you how to segment direct traffic to help figure out how many visitors came through a bookmark and how many likely came through some offline media like yellow pages.
Direct traffic is not dependant on shaky factors like search engine ranking or social media popularity.
Sorry but can't resist posting here at DP again. Found an excellent post by Australia SEO blog here Quoted as the following, this should open your minds a bit. I am posting just because I got the same thing happened to my site and it actually turns out Search Engine traffic but considered as Direct traffic due to the fact I made a redirection. Very simple really. Awesome post really. Must read.
I think You should not go through any other site it means bypass any other site. You should go from direct url.