Direct Referrals showing 98% bounce rate

[Rlilly]

IN Google Analytics its showing the bounce rate for Direct Referral traffic is 98% - this makes no sense because usually direct traffic is targeted repeat customers/visitors.

Suffice to say, positioning in Google has been dropping.

Where could this traffic be coming from?

[NickMNS]

Referrer spam. It would actually be 100% but you probably have some actual direct traffic. Referrer spam usually shows as referral traffic, but at times the spammer may not correctly enter the referrer in the UA and so it goes to direct traffic. If you check your logs, that traffic probably never hit your server in the first place. It could also just be regular bot traffic, which would appear in your logs. It is Most likely not real human user for the most part.

[lucy24]

Where could this traffic be coming from?

Nowhere, probably. This is the big disadvantage of using an analytics package (any analytics, not specifically GA) that doesn't live on your own site and isn't subject to your own access controls.