Referrers

that are absent...

[nervo]

What kind of referring links are those that I see in my logs:

-locked referer
-no referrer
-hidden referrer

Thanks all!

[goodroi]

locked referer & hidden referrer
the visitor is using a privacy service to avoid showing you the referral info

no referrer
multiple ways to cause this, including the visitor using the address bar to directly visit your site or using a privacy service

[digitalv]

This happens when the user either visits your site from a bookmark or by typing the link into your browser, or if they have they're blocking the HTTP Referrer in their browser.

The referring document information is sent by the browser - when someone clicks a link to your site, their browser sends this information over to your web server in the headers. Because it's done client side, it's easy for visitors to block this manually (if you're a privacy nut) and also software like Norton Internet Security does this automatically at the highest setting.

There isn't any way around it. However, if you're trying ot measure traffic from a known link you can use a "tracking url" to solve the problem. A Tracking URL is just like a regular URL, but with extra data in the querystring which you can use to easily identify where the link came from. Instead of having people link to www.example.com, have them link to www.example.com/?track=theirname

It won't affect the way the page loads and it will make it really easy for you to tell who the click came from even if the visitor is blocking their referrer info.

[nervo]

That was really helpful, thanks guys!