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In Google Analytics, why does Google show up sometimes under an organic medium, and other times as a referral? (They frequently have the same landing page.)

As I understand (and I'm just as likely to be dead wrong), the organic medium indicates someone found a link to my page in search results and the referral is when a link from site X leads to my site. I understand a search engine just populates a page with links, so how does GA determine when to call a Google referral organic as opposed to referral?

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1 Answer

up vote 7 down vote accepted

This answer may help - http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55587. In summary, they come from google domains which aren't searches.

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I pulled one referral set from the google.ca domain; 3 new, 2 returning visitors. Is there anyway to get more detail on the referral than just the domain? – mfg Apr 13 '11 at 13:53
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If you click on the referring site name in the report then it lists the pages on that site that the link came from. – paulmorriss Apr 13 '11 at 13:58

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