my web site has a lot of "(direct) / (none)" traffic (over 50%) in Google Analytics, but under the "Audience", 100% are new visitors, why is that?
I am quite sure most of the Audience should be new visitor, but why so many "(direct) / (none)" traffic?
Update: Actually we have launch a new site which this number drop significantly, so I am interested in knowing why the number was so high in the past.
This SO post discusses the same issue, though I'm not sure all the items listed create direct traffic:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7537282/what-really-makes-up-direct-traffic-in-google-analytics
Any visits which do not come from a browser will appear as direct, e.g clicks on links in:
Other possible causes are:
Many of the above are from the list here: http://www.webtrendsoutsider.com/2008/reasons-for-direct-traffic-in-referrers-reports/
Also note (see wikipedia) that if a website is accessed from a HTTP Secure (HTTPS) connection and a link points to anywhere except another secure location, then the referer field is not sent.
So a site like encrypted.google.com doesn't pass on referral data, and also appears as a direct source. However, although logged in google users use ssl, google passes on all referral data except the search term.
So if you think you may have visitors from the above, then try tagging links which might appear in such places with campaign parameters. This page tells you how:
http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1033863
The campaign tags correspond directly with google analytics fields such as source, medium and keyword, so tagging links with these parameters will ensure visitors from non-browser sources retain the correct source and medium data.
https://, and transitioning from https:// to http:// when clicking a search result to a non-SSL site wipes the referrer.
Commented
Aug 24, 2012 at 21:39
There could be many reasons. Google suggests this, however I had (and still having) a similar problem, although in smaller percentage. After some research, I got to the conclusion that some browsers are set not to leave referral (Analysing the user-agent string, most of those "direct" traffic was coming from a few specific browser-OS combinations), proxy servers might filter referrals, and more simple reasons like bookmark, links from emails, directly typed address, set as homepage.
If it's a new website have you and your friends co-workers visited the site many times? If so it's counting you as a visit. And when you visit the site again after 30 minutes you are then counted as another unique visitor.
Another possibility is that you were getting hits from robots which would explain the direct source of traffic. To determine which one is the reason you should look at the Location of your visitors and see if your city and your developers city are the ones the visits are coming from.
I would also look to see which landing pages on your domain were getting the direct traffic. If your new website does not have the same link structure you may have foiled bots hitting specific pages of yours which would be a reason direct traffic dropped.
