Self Referrals can cause data integrity issues in Google Analytics.
When you get self referral data in your reports, it means the referrers (i.e. sources) that shows up in your Google Analytics reports have been inaccurately assigned.
Self referrals can usually be caused by one of the scenarios.
Consider the case below.
To resolve this issue, you have set up URL direction from Page-A to Page-B. When your users visit Page-A, they will automatically be taken to Page-B. You can set up this redirect with a few methods.
URL Direction | Analytics |
---|---|
Server-side 301 | Okay. http referrer header is preserved. |
Server-side 302 | Okay. http referrer header is preserved. |
Client-side Redirect | Problem. http referrer header is not preserved. |
You can always use the Chrome browser’s built-in Developer Tool to verify if a redirect has been set up on the server-side as a 301 (or 302) redirect.
This line confirms it is a server-side redirect.
Status Code 301 Moved Permanently (from cache)
If you do not see the status code being reported as 301 or 302, then it is a client-side redirect.
On Page-A, you have this code in the section that performs a client-side redirect in the web browser.
In practical when taking your users automatically from an old page to a new page, you should always only use server-side 301 (or 302) redirect. Server-side 301 (or 302) redirect preserves the referrer information which is good practice for web analytics.
Consider this scenario in which you have two pages on your website.
m.example.com/Page-A m.example.com/Page-B
A user lands on Page-A. While on page-A, this user clicks a link that takes him / her to Page-B.
source=m.example.com medium=referral
This source referrer information recorded by Google Analytics is incorrect.
For good practice, you should always ensure installing your Google Analytics tracking code on all your web pages.
Content on Gordon Choi’s Analytics Book is licensed under the CC Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license.
Gordon Choi’s Other Books:
The China Mobile SEO Book
Mobile Website Book
Setup Guide for WordPress websites: Set up Google Analytics on WordPress website to track/measure user behavior data. Optimize your website & traffic/marketing strategies based on GA reports.
Setup Guide of Google Analytics on Shopify websites and/or online stores: Track the behavior of your Shopify website visitors. Improve your digital marketing campaigns based on the measured data.
Setup Guide of Google Ads (AdWords): After installing analytics, get people to visit your website through Google Ads. Optimize Google Ads in 2 phases: One-time setup & ongoing optimization. Build ad campaigns that can always return highest sales with lowest cost.
Copyright 2016-2020 www.AnalyticsBook.org