Really interesting piece, thanks Danny.
Also worth bearing in mind that Google has now switched to https for all searches (not just signed-in ones) which also means that keyword data in analytics is stripped - see:
http://searchengineland.com/post-prism-google-secure-searches-172487
..and in fact there's an article linked from the one above which talks about "the death of referrer data" which is interesting to read alongside Danny's link:
http://searchengineland.com/the-death-of-web-analytics-an-ode-to-the-referrer-42875
I suppose there are ways of encouraging "dark social" links which carry a campaign tag still? I mean - people won't manually strip that and I don't *think* social networks do either - so in theory you should still be able to see referrer data if you use these? It'd be a hassle, obviously…
Could campaign links be used for incoming traffic from Wikipedia? I don't have enough editing experience on Wikipedia to know if they'll let you put
http://blah.com/somepage.htm?utm_source=wikipedia&utm_medium=….
rather than just
http://blah.com/somepage.htm
?
…and would this help? (brain melts)
cheers
Mike
_____________________________
Mike Ellis
Thirty8 Digital: a small but perfectly formed digital agency: http://thirty8.co.uk
* My book: http://heritageweb.co.uk *
On 25 Sep 2013, at 09:52, "Birchall, Danny" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> An interesting article on the expansion of the domain of 'dark social' to 'dark secure' -- sites that strip referral data and cause referrals to show up in GA as 'direct traffic'
>
> http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/-dark-social-and-other-mysterious-analytics/s2/a554142/
>
> The implication of this seems to be that an increase in apparent 'direct' traffic is down to an increase in the use of HTTPS as standard, and that Wikipedia is following this path, first for logged-in users and eventually for all users.
>
> Has anyone noticed a drop in Wikipedia referrals to their sites?. What are the implications for projects with Wikimedia if we can't show direct traffic to our sites as one of the benefits of working together?
>
> Danny
>
>
>
>
> Danny Birchall
> Digital Manager, Wellcome Collection
> Wellcome Trust
> Gibbs Building
> 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK
> Tele: +44 (0) 207 611 8894
> email: [log in to unmask]
> www.wellcomecollection.org
> www.twitter.com/explorewellcome
>
>
>
>
> This message has been scanned for viruses by Websense Hosted Email Security - www.websense.com
>
> ****************************************************************
> website: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ukmcg
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/museumscomputergroup
> [un]subscribe: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/email-list/
> ****************************************************************
****************************************************************
website: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ukmcg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/museumscomputergroup
[un]subscribe: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/email-list/
****************************************************************
|