Referrer

Web Analytics: Referrer:- The referrer is the page URL that originally generated the request for the current page view or object.

The referrer is a field in the request header from a client. Most of the time the referrer is the value of this field. If the link is contained within a frame, most analytic tools will navigate through the frames to collect the referrer of the top-most page containing the frame. Also the original link may be redirected to another URL one or more times. Typically the redirecting server will maintain the original referrer so that rendered page will have the referrer URL of the page that started the sequence of requests. For log-based analytic tools, the referrer is the referrer value in the request header.

Each hit to a website has a referrer. However there are several situations where the referrer value is empty or null. Some user agents such as email clients or news readers may not set the referrer value in the request header. For browser useragents, an empty referral string usually indicates that the user either directly entered the URL or selected from a list of bookmarks. These are often reported as "No Referrer" or "Direct Navigation".

In the case when the visitor is coming from outside the website, the referrer value is the only way of determining where the visitor came from or who referred the visitor to the website. Furthermore the referrer URL may be accompanied by parameters that convey additional important information. For example, the content that was viewed or the keyword that was searched in the case of search portals may be passed through parameters.

Specific Referrer Types:

Internal Referrer, External Referrer, Search Referrer, Visit Referrer, Original Referrer .

contributed by, Web Analytics Tips