Website visits that arrive through links on other websites rather than through search engines or direct navigation.
A useful measure of traffic generated by partnerships, media coverage, directories, and backlinks.
Short and sweet:
Website visits that arrive through links on other websites rather than through search engines or direct navigation.
A useful measure of traffic generated by partnerships, media coverage, directories, and backlinks.
See also: Backlink, Earned Media, Organic Traffic
Referral traffic refers to visitors who arrive at a website by clicking a link on another website, as distinguished in analytics from traffic arriving through organic search, direct navigation, or paid ads. It’s a signal that other sites consider a business’s content or brand worth linking to, whether that’s a press mention, a partner site, or a directory listing. Because these visitors arrive with some pre-existing context or endorsement from the referring site, referral traffic sometimes converts at a different rate than a cold visitor landing from a broad search query.
A small startup mentioned in a TechCrunch article might see a sudden spike in referral traffic, as thousands of readers click straight from the article to the company’s homepage.
Wirecutter’s product reviews send massive amounts of visits like this to retailers like Amazon and Target, since readers click the recommended-product links right after finishing an article.
A local business listed prominently in a “best restaurants in town” blog post can see a noticeable jump in visits arriving from that one blog rather than from a Google search.
