What are the causes for self-referral mainly by returning users in Google Analytics?

Question

We are tracking our website on 3 separate properties.

We have self-referral on one of the properties.

In the landing page report, I have applied a second dimension of full referrer, then applied a filter to show only self-referrals.

I also applied segmentation of: All Sessions, Returning Users, and New Users.

And I get:

• All sessions: % of Total: 27.63%
• Returning users: % of Total: 27.62%
• New Users: % of Total: 0.01% (4)

Tracker settings in Google Tag Manager:

• AllowLinker: true
• anonymizeIp: false
• cookieDomain: auto
• cookieName: _gaGTM

I also monitored real time traffic sources while browsing around the website, specifically browsing back and forth from the landing pages and full referrer paths listed in landing page reports and they don't track as self-referrals for me.

Why could this be happening, and how do I fix this?

Answer 1

Since hardly any of these are new users, this looks like a page is failing to load the tracker - or is missing it outright. What shows up when you look at the Landing Page for this segment with a secondary dimension set to Full Referrer? That will show you the suspect pages.