Look for a spike in direct traffic from old browser versions like Firefox 11.0, Internet Explorer 7.0, or Chrome. If the traffic comes from various locations, it may be generated from one of several bots that have been propagated around the internet. If it all comes from one place, you can easily build a filter to eliminate it.Ĭheck Browser and Operating System Versions Maybe it is an ‘uptime’ monitor that you initiated. Sometimes there is a single crawler, bot or service causing the whole thing. Use exclude filters in your view for spam referrals.Ĭheck City, Service Provider and Network Domain If you list other domains (like spam referrals), it will strip the referrals off the session, but the sessions remain - as direct visits. If your site links to a partner site (like a payment gateway), this would join an initial session on your site with a returning visit from the partner site. The Referral Exclusion List prevents traffic from the listed domains from starting a new referral session. Whatever the reason, people need to be able to see the non-bot traffic to their websites.
A number of theories have been thrown around, including ad click fraud, affiliation fraud, purpose-built crawlers that hide their identity, and more.
There is no apparent purpose or reason behind this traffic - it just exists sometimes for a short period of time, and sometimes for months. A number of my clients have seen unexplained direct traffic in their Google Analytics accounts.