6 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
6 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Google analytics, traffic source question

by aygabtu
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Curious, when google analytics shows traffic sources, does it count users based on history? For example, if someone used google to find my site 3 weeks ago and they use my site again, but from a bookmark, does analytics count that today as a source from the google each day?

My numbers appear that way, which sucks, because I want to know how many new users are coming in from google, not the number that visit that originally found me via google.
#analytics #google #question #source #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author raviv
    If someone visited your site through a search on Google, it is going to be shown under Traffic Sources under Search Engines and you can see the keywords that brought in visitors to your site.

    If the user has bookmarked your site and returns to your site 3 weeks later, it will show up under Direct Traffic.

    Also, Google shows you number of unique visitors and when you subtract that from total visitors, you get the repeat visitors count.

    If you are still particular, you can change the time period for a week to see the visitors during the past week.

    Best
    Raviv

    Originally Posted by aygabtu View Post

    Curious, when google analytics shows traffic sources, does it count users based on history? For example, if someone used google to find my site 3 weeks ago and they use my site again, but from a bookmark, does analytics count that today as a source from the google each day?

    My numbers appear that way, which sucks, because I want to know how many new users are coming in from google, not the number that visit that originally found me via google.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3304116].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author aygabtu
      Ok, so I show this search string 'roi 8.2 e-3' as bringing 13 visitors to my site. I know what roi is, but the other numbers make no sense, yet 13 people used that search string?

      Another example, 'aygbtu storm8'. They spelled the domain name wrong. 21 visitors did the same exact misspelling and followed it with storm8?

      And one more, 'storm8 calculater droid x'. It shows 8 visitors with that search string. Really? 8 people typed that exact search in and misspelled calculator wrong?

      Something isn't right.
      Signature

      Check top 300 Google SERP results free. WhatsMySERP.com tracks and graphs changes for multiple domains/keywords/regions. Also includes advanced keyword density tool.

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3305419].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author aygabtu
        Just an extra piece of information, I keep good logs of visitors to the site, the referring string, which includes the search engine and what they searched for and my numbers for google are about 1/2 to 1/3 of what google claims they are.
        Signature

        Check top 300 Google SERP results free. WhatsMySERP.com tracks and graphs changes for multiple domains/keywords/regions. Also includes advanced keyword density tool.

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3305489].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author ColeenB
    You're right. Something is set up wrong. I looked at your site and it looks like the Analytics code is only set up once on each page, and that it's not altered from the standard. Did you customize anything within Google Analytics?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3306836].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author raviv
      Now that you have given some extra info it clears the fog a little bit more. There are lots of bots on the web other than search engines that ping sites all the time. I have had strange domains sending me referral traffic. These automated bots could be set on the web to harvest sites for email links etc. It is true you have a unique domain name but the code driven bots could adapt themselves to suit the domain name and Analytics could register it as a visitor.

      You can also access traffic stats from your cpanel (depends on the webhost) using programs like Awstats as it processes your raw log data and the stats will be more accurate.

      Best
      Raviv
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3308902].message }}

Trending Topics