Referral / referrer

Referrals in web analytics are sites that bring people to your site via a certain link. A referrer report gives you information on where your visitors come from and what your traffic sources are.

We can divide referrers into four groups:

  • Direct entry – all visits created by direct visit, or when info about real referrer is missed because of any reason
  • Websites – referrals from other websites
  • Campaigns – referrals from other websites but with tagging parameters
  • Search engines – entries from Google, Bing, etc.

More about referrers on the Piwik PRO blog:

Also, learn about referrals from our help center: Website & social report


  • HIPAA-compliant analytics for healthcare systems: How hospital marketing teams can measure what matters

    Patients now research symptoms, compare providers, and book appointments entirely online before ever contacting a hospital. Healthcare marketers need to adapt to digital-first patient journeys, run campaigns for numerous service lines, manage hospital marketing analytics across multiple locations, and prove ROI to administrators. For nonprofit hospitals, the picture is broader still — donation tracking is…

  • Privacy by design in practice: How “just enough” data beats “just in case” collection

    While collecting more data “just in case” feels safer, according to Matt Gershoff, it’s also one of the biggest sources of unnecessary compliance risk, analytical noise, and wasted organizational resources in the analytics industry today. His approach of “just enough” data collection is more intentional, more aligned with privacy regulation, and often more analytically effective.