Looking at my sources of traffic (Google, Pinterest, etc.), on one of my successful articles I notice the source is "direct". When I look at "referral path", it just says, "not set".
Does anyone have any insight into what "direct" is as far as the source of traffic goes? I thought it might be traffic from the Hubpages site but I notice that Analytics tells you when that is the case, so I don't think that's what it is.
Direct is someone that has come to your URL directly, through a bookmark on their browser for example.
It is also someone that has visited your site through, Google for example then clicks off to something and hits the back button to read your article again.
If someone decides not to allow cookies I have noticed (not sure about this) that if they spend more than 5 minutes on a page on the website (the network sites) and then click a sidebar link to your pages it would show as a direct visit.
That's very interesting and what I kind of suspected. And, in fact, it's kind of what threw me. All of the traffic is "direct" and it gets decent traffic. Seems unlikely all that traffic is from a bookmark.
Edit: Except that your last explanation seems most likely what is happening. They are probably on the site somewhere and click a side bar. I bet that's the case.
by Caren White 6 years ago
Analytics tells me that I suddenly started getting traffic from something called the Maven Coalition. Since I don't have a website on Maven, are my hubs being advertised there? How can I figure out where specifically on Maven this traffic is coming from?
by David 470 14 years ago
I see that there are 4 traffic sources. Search Engines, Direct traffic, referring sites, and other.Does direct traffic mean from hubpages? And referring sites? I have some for that..
by David 470 13 years ago
I checked my google analytics and see I am getting about 10% traffic from both direct traffic & referring sites combined.What exactly do those mean? Are people typing my profile into the URL? I am assuming the referring sites are links?
by Ann Smith 16 years ago
Okay, guys! What am I doing wrong here? I have written 39 hubs, and only made $4.94 on AdSense. That must be the hardest earned $4.94 of my life - no joke! I made more than that in one evening of babysitting 25 years ago.HELP!! Please!! I have heard it takes...
by Tony Lawrence 13 years ago
I got email this morning telling me that "We’re excited to share that the new version of Google Analytics will soon be activated in your account. In addition to a redesigned interface that makes it even easier to explore your data, you’ll also notice some significant new features. Here are a...
by Anti-Valentine 15 years ago
I checked my e-mail today, and saw an one that had this heading: Get More Traffic with ZAR1000 FREE Advertising on Google.I was suspicious, and thought I would post it here."Get more traffic to your websiteDear Google Analytics User,As a Google Analytics customer, we know that you care about...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |