Take a look at the following graphic… What does it tell you about search engine traffic?

It would appear that your search engine traffic has gone down by 2.76%. But that’s not actually the case at all. If you drill into search engines you see the following….

Organic traffic has actually gone up 5.7% even though the first graphic said it had gone down 2.76%. The reason is simple - search engine traffic went down relative to the other types of traffic. In other words, direct traffic went up more than 5.7%. The first graphic is the product of a zero sum game - if one area increases, the others have to decrease, even though, on their own they’re increasing.

Let’s put it another way. If direct traffic and referring sites had gone up 5.7% as well, then the percentages in the first graphic would all have been zero even though all of them went up 5.7%.

The take away is that when interpreting web analytics stats, be careful in your interpretations. Digging deeper can clarify initial misconceptions.

Tags: search engine traffic
Categories: Google Analytics, Web Analytics