Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Whats 'Other' in Google Analytics (in Acquisition)
-
When i look in GA under Channels (under Acquisition) 'other' is listed
What is 'other' ?
I have been told its other unidentified channels as they did not allow 3rd party cookies or surfers were in anonymous/private mode. Other is usually organic traffic that couldn't be identified for the aformentioned reasons. This data is encrypted and available but it violates Google guidelines as they are not allowed to pass personal info//data to third parties so it is automatically filtered. But they are not 'Not Provided' (since that still shows under organic) but is usually/mainly some form of organic visits.
Hence Seo can take credit for much of that traffic, is this correct ?
Many Thanks
-
-
Hello All,
We are not running any paid ads, our all traffic from organic search and social media, referral sites where we promote our website organically then why we are seeing this "other" option in GA. Most of the conversions we are getting from "other" and confused from which source of medium getting this traffic.
Sunil Kumar
KM: Edited to remove unnecessary link
-
Thanks Kate!
-
It's going to depend on how your tracking is setup but out of the box, GA's channel for Social is anything that is tagged as social. Any untagged campaigns, including social ones, are going to be put into Other.
-
Thanks Kate. In terms of social search, does this refer to all traffic generated from social media sites? If 'other' is from untagged paid advertising like Facebook, then 'social search' does not include traffic from FB ads?
-
It's traditionally untagged paid advertising like Facebook. Paid Search is typically campaigns from AdCenter or AdWords, the search engines themselves.
-
How does 'other' differ to paid search?
-
It is most likely the names of campaigns you might have set up. It's best to discussion with your marketing and advertising departments.
-
I am seeing a significant number of sessions under "other" as well. and when I go into Other for details, I see 2 entries - cd and DC. Can any one elaborate on what these mean.
Thanks!
-
great thanks for that additional info Geoff !
all best
dan
-
+1 Kate
To add on what Kate said, you can typically get a little more data to help you pinpoint what it is by clicking on other and then looking at secondary dimensions such as medium, ad distribution network, placement domain, campaign, etc.
-
cool cheers
-
PLA = Product Listing Ads
-
many thnaks for further comments Kate
Sorry but whats PLA ?
No but i will now
All Best
Dasn
-
Paid is typically AdWords and AdCenter, paid search things. But stuff like Reddit advertising, Facebook, Twitter, and other display advertising, and maybe PLA based advertising (that might be your Google), is Other Advertising.
When you click into Google, have you added a second metric of something like destination URL to see where the traffic is going? That might give you some clues.
-
isnt cpc type activity going to show in Paid search ?
when i click on 'other' within channels it shows 4 sub channels no 1 is Google and the others are know activity like Buffer.
When i click on Google there's no further breakdown apart from the traffic details (sessions/goals etc).
-
Not sure. All organic search traffic should be going into Organic and Other is really set to CPC type tracking. Can you list what the other section says for you?
-
ok thanks Kate
Seems a tad strange though since all known paid channels being reported elsewhere.
It would be good to know if theres a way to find out whats causing it since all paid campaigns, PPC, emails, display, etc etc being reported in other places and traffic from this 'Google Other' source is 4x current organic search traffic
All Best
Dan
-
Most of what you see in other is from paid sources, even traffic from Google. I would not count the traffic you see in Other as natural search traffic unless you are 100% sure. Everything in my various client's Other categories are paid sources.
-
what about what these guys are saying:
-
Many Thanks for that Kate !
-
According to Google, Other is actually not organic. It's other advertising channels. See the link below and how they define other.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3297892?hl=en&ref_topic=3125765
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
-
Whatstuffwherebot user agent messing up Google Analytics
Starting yesterday, Aug 26, 2020, I noticed a new bot crawling our site with user agent whatstuffwherebot. Google Analytics is counting these hits as human traffic, completely throwing off my numbers - yesterday, Analytics reported nearly triple my typical number of visitors. As of now, Search Console only shows data through Aug 25 so I don't know if Search Console is also affected. Is anybody else seeing something similar? Does anybody know what the whatstuffwherebot bot is? I don't get any results when I search on Google or Bing. For what it's worth, the traffic is coming from Columbus, OH, running over Amazon AWS via 278 different IP addresses so far. Also, WordFence (my WordPress security plugin) correctly identifies these hits as bot traffic.
Reporting & Analytics | | ahirai0 -
Paid traffic or "Paid Search" is not showing in my Google Analytics
Hi, I have two campaigns running in Google Adwords or Google Ads now and I saw in Google Ads account that I had 5 clicks today (09/18/2018) but when I try to search for this clicks in my Google Analytics in ACQUISITION > All Traffic > Channels I don't find nothing about "Paid Search" or something like that. Bellow is a picture of my Google Analytics account to prove it. The accounts are linked and I can find the 2 campaigns in the Analytics. How can I interpret this picture? Where the paid traffic is showing? or not showing there? Thanks Leandro uvAtrsg
Reporting & Analytics | | lmoraes0 -
Google Analytics - Average Position
Hi Just trying to get some clarity on Google Analytics Average Positions in "Aquistions/Search Engine Optimisation". For a very competitive keyword Google Analytics is saying i am on average position of 6. Is this Page 6? I am assuming position six would be 1.6?
Reporting & Analytics | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
Google Analytics and Bounce Rates Query - Should I block access from foreign countries ?
Hi , When I look at my google analytics for my UK Website, I can see alot of visits come from outside the UK , i.e Brazil and USA. Both of which give me almost 100% bounce rates from people visiting from there. I am wondering, if google looks at bounce rates with regards to ranking factors and should I therefore block access to my site from visitors outside the UK ?... Would this help increase my rankings ? Given that we only serve uk customers, I cant see any benefit of allowing non uk customers the ability to see the site . what does people think ? thanks pete
Reporting & Analytics | | PeteC121 -
Google Analytics Organic Search Keywords Suddenly Displaying FulL Urls
In my Google Analytics, the top keywords for Organic Search are suddenyl displaying full URLs. For example, now the third and fourth keywords are http://www.domain.com/highly-specific-URL. These have all started recently around the same day, July 12th. I've checked back, and we've made no internal changes to the site around that time that could affect this. Any thoughts on this? Thanks! P.S. It might be related to rich snippets, but I cannot tell at this point.
Reporting & Analytics | | 10SL0 -
Google Analytics and DNS change
Our new alumni application is going be tested at domain uva.imodules.com . We are going to collect traffic data with a Google analytics account number UA-884652-XX. So going to uva.imodules.com/myPage.html would send its data to Google Analytics with that account number. Then when it is ready for production we are going to just change the domain name of the application and switch the DNS over to dardencommunity.darden.virginia.edu . So going to dardencommunity.darden.virginia.edu /myPage.html would send its data to Google Analtics with that SAME account number. Aside from having the testing domain data in the same profile are there any other issues/problems we may run into?
Reporting & Analytics | | Darden0 -
Totally Remove "localhost" entries from Google Analytics
Hello All, In Google Analytics I see a bunch of traffic coming from "localhost:4444 / referral". I had tried once before to create a filter to exclude this traffic source, but obviously I did it wrong since it's still showing up. Here is the filter I have currently: Filter Name: Exclude localhost
Reporting & Analytics | | Robert-B
Filter Type: Custom filter > Exclude
Filter Field: Referral
Filter Pattern: .localhost:4444.
Case Sensitive: No Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong and give me a push in the right direction? Thanks in advance!0 -
Comparing % Change, Google Analytics
Hey Mozzers, Is there a simple way to compare the "% Change" in traffic when comparing two separate time periods in a single Google Analytics report? When comparing data from two separate time periods, an exported CSV doesn't include the % Change (booo!), and there's no option to sort by % Change within the GA report, essentially forcing you to scroll through all the results to pinpoint the major movers and shakers. I'm not averse to using spreadsheets to sort this data, but I'm thinking that I'd likely need a macro to make this work, something like this. However, none of the macros on that page are working (possibly because they were designed for a previous version of Analytics). All suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dangaul0