blank referers

20% of my referers are null

[jarboy]

Hi,

We've got a tracking system that saves the HTTP_REFERER variable into a MySQL dB.

When I examine the table maybe 20% of the entries are empty.

I'm sure this topic has been covered before but if anyone could point to any good resources about how the referer is not passed to a server I would be grateful.

Is 20% "normal" or too high for null or blank entries?

Thanks, Jarboy

[jamie]

hi jarboy,

we have 30%

bit of a grey area, but could be:

* people who have bookmarked your site or heard about it and go straight there by typing it in the browser

* people who have firewalls which mask their Referer - increasing with growth of broadband which needs a firewall

not sure what else it could be?

[torturedata]

Try to read this
[webmasterworld.com...]

[cfx211]

20% is not bad at all. Most blanks come from type ins of your name. I would argue that the more blanks you have the better a job you are doing establishing your website as a brand and getting people to return to use it over and over.

[cornwall]

That thread that torturedata gave you is as full an explanation as you are likely to get.

If you read it, you will get an idea of the importance or otherwise of the various factors that come into play.

Basiclly nobody can really tell how many visits any one web site is getting, all you can really get is trends over time, plus a rough idea on visits