Google Analytics tracks traffic sources through several channels, which provide insights into how users find and interact with your website. The top channels typically include:
- Organic Search: Traffic that comes from search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., through unpaid (organic) search results.
- Direct: Visitors who type your website URL directly into their browser or use bookmarks to access your site.
- Referral: Traffic that comes from other websites, such as when someone clicks a link to your site from another site.
- Social: Traffic originating from social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.
- Paid Search: Traffic generated by paid advertising campaigns on search engines like Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords), Bing Ads, etc.
- Display: Traffic from display advertising, including banner ads, image ads, or other graphical ads on websites.
- Email: Traffic driven by links in emails, newsletters, or other email marketing campaigns.
- Other: Traffic that doesn’t fit into any of the above categories, such as traffic from direct clicks on links in documents like PDFs, or from sources not explicitly tracked.
These channels help website owners understand where their traffic is coming from and how effective their marketing efforts are across different channels.
