Javascript redirects can delete or replace referral data, belgium phone data causing sessions to be incorrectly attributed to the direct traffic channel. Similarly, a complex server-side redirect chain can delete UTM parameters and send sessions to direct traffic.
The fix? Don’t use meta refreshes or JS redirects. Opt for server-side redirects, but check your redirect file regularly to avoid a complex redirect system (which can also eat up your crawl budget).
4 – Links from non-Web documents
Links from PDFs, slides, or Word documents do not pass referral information. Therefore, by default, sessions originating from these links will appear as direct traffic.
One way to avoid this is to include UTM campaign parameters in your embedded hyperlinks.
5 – “Dark” Social
Scary, right? Don’t worry, there’s nothing sinister about dark social. The term refers to social sharing methods that Google can’t easily attribute to a particular source, such as email, instant messaging, Skype, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. What makes these traffic sources “dark” is their private nature. While not easily exploitable for traditional marketing campaigns, these platforms have tremendous potential to harness the power of word of mouth.
The only way to properly attribute some of your dark social traffic and keep it out of your direct channel is to use rigorous campaign tracking. A great first step is to add these platforms to your social sharing buttons and add UTM parameters to your URLs.