What does referral mean on Google Analytics?
A referral in Google Analytics happens when one website refers traffic to you—resulting in a new user clicking through to your website. Essentially, it’s a recommendation from one site to another.
What are self-referrals?
1 : the act of referring oneself to a health-care provider (such as a physician) self-referrals for obstetric care. 2 : the referral of a patient to a specialized medical facility (such as a medical imaging center) in which the referring physician has a financial interest.
How does Google Analytics work for referral traffic?
“Referral traffic is the segment of traffic that arrives on your website through another source, like through a link on another domain. These links don’t contain any campaign parameters. Analytics automatically recognizes where traffic was immediately before arriving on your site and displays the domain names of these sites in your reports.”
What does it mean when you get self referrals?
In general, self-referrals indicate that there are Analytics implementation problems on your site. If you’re receiving self-referrals, that may mean that traffic to your site is being attributed incorrectly, or that your session count is inaccurate.
Is the Google Analytics domain on the referral exclusion list?
“Universal Analytics includes your site’s domain in the referral exclusion list by default, so cross-subdomain tracking should work with no additional set up.
Can you get self referral if your domain is not on the referral exclusion list?
However, if your site has user journeys that cross subdomains, and the referral exclusion list does not include your site’s domain, then you can get self-referrals, as well as invalid extra sessions in reports. To fix this, make sure your domain is in the referral exclusion list. Learn more about the referral exclusion list.