Referrers

TL;DR

A referrer is a website that redirected traffic to another website, while the referral traffic represents the website traffic generated during that process. Refers are important as they are a constant source of traffic that can be used to improve marketing strategy.

About Referrers

In website analytics, a referrer (often misspelled referer) can be described as the previous web address accessed by a user prior to loading a particular new web page. Referrers are used in web analytics to identify sources of traffic.

When a website visitor clicks on a link that redirects to a different website, that click will be counted as a referral visit for the second website. The first website is the “referrer” as it generates traffic for the second one.

In the Pages Menu, the Referring Sites tab shows users the list of referring sites, the number of visiting sessions coming from each of those websites and the percentage of referred traffic generated by each referrer. In the overview, the top 6 referrers will be displayed.

What Are Some Examples of Referrers? 

A referrer is any online source that drives visitors and visits to another particular website. These sources may include search engines, social media channels, affiliate links, ads, links coming form newsletters, links built inside an app, etc.

In What Cases Do Referrers Get Hidden?

In some particular cases, analytics apps are not able to access and display information about referrers. Here is a shortlist of those particular cases::
The user typed in the URL by hand
The visit comes from a bookmarked page
The referring website is banning the referrer information due to privacy concerns
The visitor was using a privacy protection software that blocks the referrer