Organic traffic reported as direct

  • Resolved John

    (@graphical)


    1 year, 6 months ago

    Hi, we are getting incorrect traffic source in Google analytics when using Guest Mode.

    As soon as we enable “Guest mode” the traffic is marked as “direct” instead of “organic” in GA. (This only applies to 2-3 websites – we are using ListeSpeed on more than 50). If we disable GM, then traffic source is back to normal.

    We are excluding these in the “Guest mode JS/Exclude” :

    gtag/js
    gtm.js
    analytics.js
    window.dataLayer

    We’ve read other threads regarding this problem, but looks like some people are still having the problem – or solution wasn’t shared with the community.

    Just sent a report. You can see it here: KOSHAHEY

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • The explanation for this is comparatively simple. If Guestmode is activated, the page is reloaded with the initial request, but before GA can register this request. If GA registers this request after the reload, but the information is lost through the reload as to whether it is an organically generated request or directly. The only consequence is to deactivate the Guestmode.

    The problem described cannot be solved by any setting in the cache plugin, except by deactivating the Guestmode.

    Thread Starter John

    (@graphical)

    @serpentdriver This problems only happens on 2-3 sites but we are using Litespeed cache on more than 50. They are all on the same tech stack (server and application level). Why would it happen only on 2 website?

    Why would it happen only on 2 website?

    Good question, next question. I don’t know it. I’m just trying to think logically and logic says it can only happen the way it’s described, but there’s a possible reason the problem isn’t happening on all pages.

    Whether GA registers the initial request depends largely on how long it takes for the reload to start. For example, if you have a site that makes multiple external requests to other sites, then these external requests slow down and block the page build, or the rendering of the HTML code. This delays the page reload, but this delay is enough for GA to initialize the request.

    What also affects it is whether a page is already cached or not. If the page is not yet in the cache, it also takes longer until the page is reloaded.

    Ultimately, an uncached page has a positive effect on GA, but negatively on load time, especially on the first request.

    Plugin Support qtwrk

    (@qtwrk)

    did you disable guest mode ? and I see you have other plugin that doing something to javascript ?

    Thread Starter John

    (@graphical)

    Guest Mode and Guest Optimization are currently disabled and everything is back to normal. However, as soon as we reactivate Guest Mode, we have the problem again.

    • This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by John.
    Thread Starter John

    (@graphical)

    @qtwrk so how can we solve that?

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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