What is Direct Traffic?
Direct traffic refers to visitors who arrive at your site by typing your URL into their browser. In Google Analytics, it is also used to refer to visitors that reach your site through some other mediums, including:
- Bookmarks saved on their browser
- Documents containing your URL, e.g., ebooks
- Messaging apps like Slack and WhatsApp
- Broken UTM parameter tracking codes
- Improper or broken redirections
- URLs that led to too many redirections
- Redirections from HTTPS to the HTTP version of your site
Collectively, these sorts of traffic are called dark traffic. Direct traffic only refers to visitors who typed your URL into their browser. However, Google Analytics reports direct and dark traffic as direct traffic.
Direct traffic is a good way to measure your brand recognition. The more direct traffic you receive, the more people are familiar with and want to visit your site. This indicates they have some level of trust and confidence in your site.