- What is a visitor's referral?
- My reports do not show any data or only show "unknown" for the visitor referrals. What could be the problem?
- Are referrals working correctly for my account? How can I find out?
- I saw this in one of my referral reports.
"referrer+blocked+by+AdSubtract" OR "blocked+referrer" What is it?
- What does it mean when pages of my own site showup in my referral reports.
- I'm currently using the javascript version of Site Meter on my pages but I'm still having trouble getting Site Meter to show the referrals of my visitors. How can I fix it?
What is a visitor's referral?
A visitor's referral lets you to see how people are finding your site. The referral is the page that
contains a link to your site. The visitor clicked on the link and was sent to your web site. Referrals could be
from other sites, e-mail messages (read in a browser), search engines, banner ads, or news groups. Clicking on
the referral link will show you the site they were viewing or the keywords they typed into the search engine to find
your site.
My reports do not show any data or only show "unknown" for the visitor referrals. What could be the problem?
You've probably added the non-javascript version of the Site Meter HTML to the pages of your site.
You'll need to add the javascript version to your pages to track the referrals of your visitors. To
get the javascript version of the Site Meter HTML, login to your account on Site Meter and
select the "HTML Code" link from the MANAGER page of your account.
I saw this in one of my referral reports. "referrer+blocked+by+AdSubtract" OR "blocked+referrer" What is it?
Someone is using a program like "AdSubtract", which is mainly used to block ads from showing up in web pages,
to block any referral information from being collected about their visit to your site. Some firewall programs
that people use will also block referrals from being collected by Site Meter.
Are referrals working correctly for my account? How can I find out?
You must use the
JavaScript version of Site Meter in order to discover how
people are finding your site. The "Recent Visitors by Referrals"
report will tell you how your visitors were "referred" to your
site. If you are using the JavaScript version but the "Recent
Visitors by Referrals" report is still empty, it may be no one has
been referred to your site (yet). To test the referral report,
leave your site, wait 30 minutes, go to the Site Meter
manager page , and then click on "Site Statistics". At the top of
your statistics page, your site's name is displayed. It is also a
link to your web site. Click on that link to go to your site. You
are being "referred" to your site by Site Meter . Next,
click on your counter to go back to your statistics page and select
the "Recent Visitors by Referrals" report. You should see a entry
for the link from your statistics page to your site.
What does it mean when pages of my own site show up in my referral reports.
It is normal for it to happen occasionally but if you see it
happening a lot with the same page, check the page and make sure that it has a Site Meter
counter on it. Any pages where you haven't placed the counter will be treated by Site Meter as pages "outside" your
site and will record a referral from that page as if it actually was on another site. It can also happen when someone has been
'sitting' on one of your pages for 30 minutes (until their current visit to your site ends) and then clicks on another link on your site.
The click starts a new visit and the page they were sitting on becomes the referring page for the new visit.
Here is a page that you can use to help understand how referral's work.
I'm currently using the javascript version of Site Meter on my pages but I'm still having trouble getting Site Meter to show the referrals of my visitors.
There are some cases where it isn't always possible to capture the referrals of your visitors.
If you are using a site that uses frames, you may need to make some additional changes to the Site Meter HTML. Check here for more information.
- If another site pops your site up in a new window
using the javascript window.open command, the referral information isn't available in Internet Explorer. Pop-up or Pop-under site exchanges will do that.
- Some web sites will also do a javascript window.open when someone clicks on a link on their site. They do that so they won't "lose"
their visitor and your site will open in a new window.
- If you send an email to someone that contains a link to your site and they click on it, their email reader will usually
launch their web browser with the link's address in it it. When that happens,
the "email" message was what referred the visitor to your site but it will showup as "unknown" in your referral reports. This isn't true of web site email programs like hotmail.com.
For those referrals, you will see a link for the web page of the email message but if you click on it you will not be able to view the original message because you are not logged into their email account.
- Of course a referral won't be available if a site didn't refer a visitor to your site.
That'll happen when someone types in your address directly into the browser.
