{"id":21591,"date":"2020-01-28T16:07:19","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T16:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/direct-traffic"},"modified":"2026-05-11T22:40:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T22:40:34","slug":"direct-traffic","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/direct-traffic","title":{"rendered":"Direct Traffic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad wp-image-22936 size-full alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/direct-traffic.jpg\" alt=\"Direct Traffic\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/direct-traffic.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/direct-traffic-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Direct traffic includes traffic from users accessing a website&#8217;s URL directly in their browser search bar, or through a bookmark or favorites list.<\/p>\n<p>It also includes visits from documents not available in the search results or visits resulting from clicks from email messages in email managers such as Outlook, Thunderbird, etc., as well as from Social Network applications.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"indexed\"><span class=\"heading_text\">Direct traffic as a measure of Branding<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Direct traffic<\/strong> is directly related to brand awareness. Therefore, an increase in direct traffic is usually related to a greater number of users who access the web directly by typing the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/url\">URL<\/a> into the browser. However, to achieve a correct measurement of brandign, it will be necessary to debug that source and exclude incorrectly classified traffic.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"indexed\"><span id=\"como-mejorar-la-clasificacion-del-trafico-directo\" class=\"anchor\"><\/span><span class=\"heading_text\">How to improve direct traffic classification<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>One of the main problems presented by direct traffic in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-analytics-agency-spain\">web analytics<\/a> is that it is a source in which not only the visits of that channel are collected, but others that are not properly classified arrive at it.<\/p>\n<p>Among the reasons why sessions are classified as direct traffic in Google Analytics we can highlight:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Shortcuts from when typing the site URL in the browser<\/li>\n<li>Clicks from favorites<\/li>\n<li>Access from links with javaScript<\/li>\n<li>Sessions from mail managers<\/li>\n<li>Links from documents (word, pdf, powerpoint)<\/li>\n<li>Clicks from websites developed with Flash<\/li>\n<li>Dark Social (social media apps)<\/li>\n<li>Traffic from https to http<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For this it is essential to label these links with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/utm\">UTM<\/a> parameters that will serve so that these visits are collected in their corresponding sources (Email or Social)<\/p>\n<p>Google has the following tagging tools available:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ga-dev-tools.appspot.com\/campaign-url-builder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder serves<\/a> to generate website URLs<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/analytics\/devguides\/collection\/android\/v4\/campaigns#google-play-url-builder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Play URL Builder serves<\/a> to generate GOOGLE Play Store app URLs<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/analytics\/devguides\/collection\/ios\/v3\/campaigns#ios-url-builder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Campaign Tracking URL Builder for iOS serves<\/a> to generate App App URLs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Frequently asked questions about Direct Traffic<\/h2>\n<div class=\"geo-faq-block\">\n<details class=\"geo-faq-item\">\n<summary>What does Direct Traffic mean in digital marketing?<\/summary>\n<p>Direct Traffic refers to the concept described in this glossary entry: Definition: Direct traffic includes traffic from users accessing a website&#x27;s URL directly in their browser search bar, or through a bookmark or favorites list.  Direct traffic as a measure of Branding Direct traffic is directly related to brand awareness. It gives teams a shared vocabulary for analysing digital projects.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"geo-faq-item\">\n<summary>When should teams pay attention to Direct Traffic?<\/summary>\n<p>Teams should review Direct Traffic when it affects acquisition, measurement, user experience, content, automation or campaign performance. The important step is to connect the definition with a real decision.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"geo-faq-item\">\n<summary>How is Direct Traffic used in a digital strategy?<\/summary>\n<p>Direct Traffic is used by translating the concept into practical checks: where it appears in the funnel, which data or channel is involved and whether it needs optimisation, monitoring or documentation.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"geo-faq-item\">\n<summary>What is a common mistake when interpreting Direct Traffic?<\/summary>\n<p>A common mistake is using Direct Traffic too broadly. It is better to verify the context, the tool or the metric involved before making strategic or technical conclusions.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n{\n  \"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\",\n  \"@graph\": [\n    {\n      \"@type\": \"DefinedTerm\",\n      \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/direct-traffic#definedterm\",\n      \"name\": \"Direct Traffic\",\n      \"description\": \"Definition of Direct Traffic in the Arimetrics Digital Glossary.\",\n      \"inDefinedTermSet\": {\n        \"@type\": \"DefinedTermSet\",\n        \"name\": \"Arimetrics Digital Glossary\",\n        \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\"\n      }\n    },\n    {\n      \"@type\": \"FAQPage\",\n      \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/direct-traffic#faq\",\n      \"mainEntity\": [\n        {\n          \"@type\": \"Question\",\n          \"name\": \"What does Direct Traffic mean in digital marketing?\",\n          \"acceptedAnswer\": {\n            \"@type\": \"Answer\",\n            \"text\": \"Direct Traffic refers to the concept described in this glossary entry: Definition: Direct traffic includes traffic from users accessing a website's URL directly in their browser search bar, or through a bookmark or favorites list.  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It also includes visits from documents not available in the search results or visits resulting from clicks from email messages in email managers such as Outlook, Thunderbird, etc., as well as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[816,408],"class_list":["post-21591","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-analitica-trafico","encyclopedia-tag-web-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/21591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=21591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}