We spend a lot of time telling our clients that traffoc from Google is organic search engine traffic – that is after all why we do SEO. So you can imagine that many people are extremely confused when they see reports like this form Google Analytics:
So why on earth are we seeing Google as a referring domain? And sometimes different geographic versions of Google such as Google.co.za and Google.uk?
The reason for this is that there are numerous different Google “properties” such as Image searches, Groups, Reader and Alerts to name a few. If someone follows a link on any of these Google properties, it records as a referral visit. If you are in Google Analytics in the Referrals report, you can click on the actual referral site link, and in most cases the extension will give you an idea which property the referral came from.
If you have any other Analytics questions or just need help analysing your web traffic, please contact us.