Products
Webtrends Analytics 8.x
Webtrends Analytics 9.x
Cause
Introduction:
In reports based on the referrer field of the log files (i.e., Referring Site, Referring Domain, Referring Page), “Direct Traffic” often appears among the top-ranked entries. Direct traffic is defined as visitor traffic to the web site from which there was no previously visited site. An entry in a web log for the opening of session originating as direct traffic would list a hyphen (-) in the cs-referer field, indicating the absence of this value.
Direct Traffic results when visitors start a session by clicking on a link in an e-mail or some other source, such as a bookmark, that opens a new browser tab or window. It also originates with visitors who manually enter the URL in the address bar of the browser. In either case, the new session lacks a history and is not referred but considered direct traffic to the site.