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.
Android Webview & Safari (in-app) without any referrer information in Google Analytics
-
I've got a client that gets a considerable amount of traffic that:
- Enters on an interior page (that we are running properly tagged ads for on various platforms)
- Bounces
- Has a browser of either Android Webview or Safari (in-app) which I believe indicates the website is being viewed within a mobile app
- Has no referrer data: (direct) / (none)
We've tested several scenarios (Facebook app, Gmail app, etc.) and ruled them out. Anyone know what this might be?
Thanks in advance!!
-
Oh, excellent work!
Good to know for the future!
-
UPDATE: We were able to get tracking code on the Pandora ads and determined that it was the source of nearly all of those visits. So, it WAS Pandora all along.
- topic:timeago_earlier,2 months
-
Ah, that's interesting!
We don't get Pandora over here in the UK so it's been a while since I touched it. Does it still require/run in flash? That might go some way to explaining weird referrer data...
-
Hey! I haven't resolved the issue yet, but I'm working with the client to add some tracking to all of their Pandora ads. I'm thinking that might be the culprit. Turns out the are running several ad types so there are some that may not be tagged after all.
The implementation isn't the issue, because the only time we see this 11 issue is from this specific traffic source. Everything else behaves normally and typically aligns with metrics we get from other sources.
I will definitely keep you posted about updates. (And will probably throw a party when I finally get it resolved!)
- topic:timeago_earlier,7 days
-
Hey Sarah,
Just checking back to see if you're still struggling with this?
-
Hah!
Ah, now, that's particularly interesting. Got a link to the site handy? Might be worth exploring the implementation.
-
The more I learn about this, the less I know.
It appears that each individual session is actually being counted as 11 sessions. Unless, of course, 11 people from the same small town visited the website on the same day, viewed the same pages and entered the exact same typo into the coupon code box.
Everything my mystery traffic does appears to happen in multiples of 11. I'd love to think that it's just the Internet reminding me that Spinal Tap is awesome, but I suspect there may be more to it.
-
Yikes, definitely sounds like there's some exploring to be done!
I'm going to see if I can rope in some smart people to help, and get back to you.
-
Thank you so much for your response!
Yep. I've looked at it by screen resolution, device, location, ISP, demographics...just about everything. Every indication is that this is NOT bot traffic. The distribution percentages of the various attributes are all fairly similar to the "regular" traffic. The only exception is that my phantom traffic appears to be a little older. The traffic patterns also follow the regular traffic, and those patterns are usually influenced by offline advertising efforts.
This feels like some kind of rogue mobile ad campaign, but we have ruled out all mobile campaigns that we are knowingly running (Facebook, Instagram, Google Display on Pandora, etc.). We are also seeing bounce rates significantly higher than the rest of our mobile campaign traffic which would theoretically rule out the possibility that our tracking code is getting stripped out somehow on some of our campaigns. We have ruled out both promotional and transactional emails.
This is easily the most frustrating analytics mystery I've ever encountered!
-
Hey there,
My gut feeling is that this sounds like bot traffic.
Many generic systems represent themselves as safari-compatible agents, given that this is one of the main mobile web platforms.
I'd be interested in understanding how this traffic looks when you segment it by other attributes; specifically, screen resolution, colour depth and a few other of the 'system' variables in GA tend to give some good clues as to whether this is human or bot traffic. Have you explored these variables, and seen unusual patterns (such as everybody using the same browser, or the same screen resolution)?
Even if there's variation in these areas, it's worth looking at the patterns over time - there are a lot of systems which, for example, monitor site performance, and as part of this legitimately emulate a variety of browsers... However, they tend to do so consistently, e.g,. at the same time of day.
I'd definitely do some digging to see if you can see patterns which suggest that this isn't real traffic, and then, either way, work out what the next steps are.
I presume that you've enabled the setting in your GA profile to exclude common bots/agents?
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
-
No-indexed pages are still showing up as landing pages in Google Analytics
Hello, My website is a local job board. I de-indexed all of the job listing pages on my site (anything that starts with http://www.localwisejobs.com/job/). When I search site:localwisejobs.com/job/, nothing shows up. So I think that means the pages are not being indexed. When I look in Google Analytics at Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization > Landing Pages, none of the job listing pages show up. But when I look at Acquisition > Channels > Organic and then click Landing Page as the primary dimension, the /job pages show up in there. Why am I seeing this discrepency in Organic Landing pages? And why would the /job pages be showing up as landing pages even though they aren't indexed?
Reporting & Analytics | Sep 24, 2015, 3:18 AM | mztobias0 -
Direct traffic spam on Google Analytics: how can you identify and filter it?
One of my smaller clients noticed a huge jump in direct traffic visits last month. The bounce rate was around 97% so I'm pretty certain that most of the traffic was illegitimate. I know how to filter out spam referrals and organic keywords in Google Analytics. However I'm not sure what to do about direct traffic spam. Are there recommendations for filtering this out? Can I identify spam IP addresses?
Reporting & Analytics | Jul 29, 2015, 7:41 PM | RosemaryB0 -
Referral Traffic from Google
Hello, I have a question about my company's new website. I've worked in SEO and studied Google Analytics results for a few years now but have never really come across something like this. I started in this position in January of this year and when I started breaking down the traffic sources in Google Analytics, I noticed most of the traffic was coming from Google.com as a referral source. I had never seen Google.com as a referral source before so I looked into options for what it could be. It was not a paid ad and our organic traffic was coming through in Analytics, Before I could get any further, our new website was launched (we switched CRM's to WordPress) and the referral traffic from google went from 2,966 in January of 2015 to 22 in February 2015. for more comparison, in February of 2014, the referral traffic from Google was 2,496. I expected a drop when we switched CRM's but we correctly re-directed all pages and created a new sitemap and our organic traffic is up since the switch (not enough to cover drop in referral). I thought at first this had to do with our Google sellers account being de-activated when we made the switch, but I quickly fixed this over a month ago and no change. I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen Google.com come through as a referral source in Google Analytics and if they we're able to figure out what it actually was. This would be a great help! Thank you, Alex
Reporting & Analytics | May 13, 2015, 11:14 AM | RASEO1 -
Is there a way to find out who the admin of a Google Analytics account is?
We have a client who has been searching high and low to gain access to the GA account that is tied to their website, but previous agencies keep stating they don't have access. Is there a way to find out who the admins are on a GA account with the tracking number so we can reach out to that person and ask them to admin the client?
Reporting & Analytics | Nov 15, 2018, 1:25 PM | marketingmediamanagement0 -
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 | Feb 4, 2015, 3:26 PM | PeteC121 -
No Social Sources in Google Analytics - what am I doing wrong?
Hello Everyone, I'm having a strange issue: I DO NOT have in my Google Analytics the "Social" tab under the Traffic Sources category. Look at the first image of this post: http://marketingland.com/google-analytics-social-reports-8138 How do you "get" that to show? Hope somebody has this issue and can help, Thanks a lot, Alex
Reporting & Analytics | Apr 5, 2012, 5:24 AM | pwpaneuro0 -
Weird info from google analytics?
Hi Could anyone explain what these visits are in Google Analytics? Under traffic sources and organic I am seeing lots of entries with data like below. Any ideas what kind of traffic this is? Is it a bot and if so what is their purpose of it and is it recommended that you block it? Pages/Visit 1.00 Avg. Time on Site 00:00:00 % New Visits : 100% Bounce Rate: 100.00% Many Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | Mar 12, 2012, 3:18 AM | ocelot0 -
Google Analytics - paid & unpaid visits messed up
I guess Google Analytics messes up my paid and unpaid visits. In the list of top 10 kw's sending non-paid traffic it shows 5 very short kw's that we don't rank for at all (checked with RankTracker - we are not in first 50 search results). But these are the kw's we advertise for... One more proof: Webmaster Tools 'Search queries' shows 10 times less 'Clicks' from organic search than Google Analytics. Is there anyone who is experiencing this kind of problems with GA? Is there anything you can do with it?
Reporting & Analytics | Apr 27, 2011, 2:29 PM | Alexey_mindvalley0