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I run a website at the domain http://www.turkishbasics.com . Google Analytics is however showing the referral path of some of my traffic to be the domain itself (turkishbasics.com). How is this even possible? I've just recently moved my site from a .tk domain and this never used to happen before. I've used php 301 redirects to get traffic to the new domain.

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Do you have a redirect from tukishbasics.com to www.turkishbasics.com, or can you view the same pages at the www and non-www versions of the site? – paulmorriss Feb 6 '12 at 13:59
The 301 redirects are from the old .tk domain to the new .com domain. I think the site works fine with or without the www – Irfaan Feb 6 '12 at 19:37

2 Answers

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There is a pretty amazing array of reasons why this can happen, most depend on when you consider a session has ended (some one has stopped using the site).

Most analytics programs leave a 15 to 30 minute window before recording a second non-unique visit to a site. So:-

  1. Users leaves your site and returns seconds later (accidentally clicked an outbound link for example).

  2. User closes one browser tab or window but has site open in another and begins to use your site again before session has expired.

  3. User hits the back-button to Google and returns directly.

  4. User leaves your site open in a browser window, goes away from the computer and begins using the site again after session has expired.

  5. Internal redirects, a user clicks on an out of date link on another site and is redirected by your site to a new url - improperly configured redirects where a user passes through two stages can cause this to happen.

  6. Not filtering YOURSELF out of your own analytics results and triggering number 4 repeatedly, or testing your own redirects over and over with your own site as the starting point.

Most common reasons are number four and number six. There are a whole host of other reasons to do with script behavior security scanning and search scanning tools it's pretty endless to be honest.

This also varies between analytics programs, Google have gotten very good at filtering some of this out but some programs simply can't because they're log analyzing or simply don't or can't track some data or user behavior.

There are a few other bugs that can cause this jensbits has a good summary the Webtrends forum has a good thread and webtrends outsider has this to say.

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Google sees www.turkishbasics.com and turkishbasics.com as two different sites.

You say you have redirected your .tk to www.turkishbasics.com - but you also need to 301 redirect turkishbasics.com to www.turkishbasics.com

This is explained in google's preferred domain and 301 redirects help pages in webmaster tools.

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