Direct Traffic=78% Search Engines=20%

Traffic Sources in Google Analytics - should be viceversa

[rowtc2]

I have around 3.000 visitors/day .I receive the most traffic via Google Search engine. I do not understand why G Analytics shows me Direct Traffic=78% and Search Engines only 20%.
I have only 5% returning visitors and no banners on other sites.

What is mean this Direct Traffic ?

[Receptional]

It means either:

People typing in the URL directly (If you are famous, they might) or

They are clicking on links (search or otherwise) but they are blocking the referrer data, so GA can't track where they came from or

It is largely bot traffic instead of real traffic... although this is less likely with a javascript tracking system like GA

I'm sure there may be other explanations.

[cgrantski]

If you do a web search on something like "reasons for direct traffic" or "direct traffic in referrer reports" you will find some good lists of all or most of the reasons. A big one for IE is your site opening in a new browser window.

[SanDiego Art]

If you think this is incorrect, you may not have tagged all the pages on your site with the GA code. I've seen problems with the Traffic Sources, when the initial page visited didn't have the code included. So when they did reach a page with the GA code, the traffic was being placed in the wrong bucket.

[rowtc2]

I think i have found the possible source of direct traffic: i have Google Search box on my site. Visitors came on my site via natural searches , then they are searching with this tool on my site and then click on results.

What do you think , am I right , this kind of searches are included in direct traffic or must be also in Search engines?

[Receptional Andy]

A common reason for this is not installing the tracking code correctly - visitors land on a page without code (or broken code) and so the first referral is always internal (or bookmark/direct as it's often reported).

[rowtc2]

Receptional Andy,you have right. I have discovered it was missing tracking code from one dinamic page with main visits .From yesterday i see correct situation.

[cgrantski]

Hi, I want to be sure I understand this. When Google Analytics encounters a visit where the referrer is known and it's the site itself, Google labels it as Direct Traffic?

[Receptional Andy]

cgrantski: yes - although I haven't looked at this for GA specifically. This applies to most stats software. rowtc2's feedback suggests the same is true for GA.

[ksumit81]

Ya Crag, sometimes users once visits many sites and make bookmarks of each site for their desired information, when they again visit it counts as a direct traffic, and when he navigates to other pages of your site, those pages are shown as referrer many many a times by GA, maybe a time interval involves in that..