The video is in the works. Until then, the guide will get you there.
Step-by-step guide
Where to find the Referring websites report
In the side menu, click "Acquisition".
A submenu opens. Choose "Referring websites" there.
The Referring websites report opens.
When you should check here
This is not a report for every morning. It pays off in certain moments, and then it really pays off:
- After a mention. A trade publication wrote about you, a partner linked to you, and an association added you to its directory. Within a few days you see here whether that turned into actual visitors or whether it stayed a nice feeling.
- When your visitor numbers suddenly climb. A spike in the visitors overview, and you have no idea where it came from? Often the answer is in this report. Somewhere out there, somebody set a link.
- Once a month as a walk-through. Ten minutes is enough. You see who recommends you regularly, which source is fading, and whether a new one showed up that you knew nothing about.
- Before you rebuild or delete a page. If an important link points to exactly that page, you lose its visitors along with it. A look at the detail view shows you beforehand what is hanging on it.
The two toggles at the top of the box
Above the table you find two toggles. Both are on from the start, and that is also the recommended setting. Normally there is nothing for you to touch here. Your choice is saved and set the same way on your next visit.
Toggle 1: "Spam filter" (recommendation: leave it on)
There is a thing on the internet called referrer spam: shady addresses that turn up in statistics even though they never sent you a real visitor. There is calculation behind it. The operators hope you will spot the unfamiliar name in your statistics, get curious, and open the address. Waiting there is advertising, a dubious offer, or worse. You can usually recognize entries like that by a bounce rate of almost 100 percent and a visit duration of zero.
With the spam filter on, Trustlytics hides these known spam sources automatically. The list is refreshed weekly. What you see then is real. Only switch it off when curiosity gets the better of you and you want to know what else is being filtered out.
To the right of the toggle you see its state: "on" or "off".
Toggle 2: "Group ad networks" (recommendation: leave it on)
Large ad networks (Google Ads, for example) often show up in the raw data under many cryptic addresses, something like pagead2.googlesyndication.com and a dozen similar ones. That is messy and does little for you.
With this toggle on, Trustlytics bundles all those addresses under the brand. You then simply see "Google Ads" instead of fifteen technical fragments. You recognize bundled entries like that by the small "Brand" label next to the name.
Switch it off when you want to see every single address separately for once.
Both toggles only change the display, not your data. So you can experiment without any risk. Nothing gets lost, and one click back restores the previous state.
The table
The heart of the report is the table with the referring websites. Every row is a website that links to you and has sent you visitors.
In the top right of the box you choose between two views:
- Table (default). The lean overview with the two most important figures.
- Detailed table. The same list, but with every detail value about the quality of the visitors.
Table (simple)
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Website | The website that linked to you (with bundled ad networks, the brand name plus the "Brand" label). |
| Visits | How many visits came to you from this website. |
Detailed table
Four additional columns come in here. They tell you whether these are good visitors:
| Column | What it means | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Website | Name and icon of the source. | |
| Visits | Number of visits from this source. | Your volume figure: how many visitors this link brings. |
| Actions | The sum of everything these visitors did (viewing pages, clicks). | More actions means more active visitors. |
| Actions per visit | Actions divided by visits. | Shows how deep the visitors dive in. A value close to 1 means they look at one page and leave again. |
| Visit duration | How long the visitors stay on average. | Longer means the source brings interested visitors. |
| Bounce rate | Share of visitors who are gone right after a single page. | Low is good. High means the source brings visitors who cannot do anything with you. |
The most important trick: do not look only at the visits, look at the bounce rate too. A website that sends you 500 visitors, 490 of whom bounce immediately, brings you almost nothing. Another one with only 50 visitors who all stay and click onward is often worth considerably more.
What you can set here
- Sorting: click a column heading to sort ascending or descending..
- Entries per page: at the bottom you choose how many rows are shown (10, 25, 50, or All).
- Paging: with long lists, you page through at the bottom.
The period being analyzed always follows the date selection at the top. Set a different period there, and the entire report adjusts immediately.
When there is nothing
If no referral is available in the selected period, the note "No referring websites in the selected period yet." appears. That is not an error. It simply means no other website sent visitors your way during that time (or it was all spam and got filtered out).
The detail view
Click any row in the table. The detail view slides in from the right and shows you everything about that one website. A click on the X closes the window again.
In the detail view you see:
Statistics
Four metrics about this website:
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Visits | How many visits came from this source. |
| Unique visitors | How many different visitors are behind them (somebody who comes several times still counts as one). |
| Ø Visit duration | How long these visitors stay with you on average. |
| Bounce rate | Share that is gone right after one page. |
Trend
A small curve shows how the visits from this website developed over time. That way you see whether a link is having a fresh effect right now or slowly running out. If there is nothing, a "—" appears.
This is the most honest part of the window, by the way. An article about you almost always brings a spike in the first few days and considerably less after that. If the curve drops to zero from one day to the next, the link was probably removed or the post was moved into the archive.
Most visited entry pages
Which page of your website the visitors from this source landed on first. The top 5, with the visit count and a small bar for comparison. That way you see which of your pages this link is actually promoting. If there is no data: "No entry pages in the selected period."
Most visited follow-up pages
Where the visitors clicked next. The top 5 of the pages they visited after the entry page. That tells you whether the visitors are really looking around or leaving again right away. If there is no data: "No follow-up pages in the selected period."
What these two lists do for you together: you read in them whether the link keeps its promise. If visitors land on your pricing page and then click "Contact", everything is running smoothly. If they land on an old blog post and leave again, you know where to improve. And if the follow-up list stays empty, that is the clearest answer of all.
Geräte
A small column chart shows which devices these visitors were using: desktop (computer), mobile (phone), tablet and others. If there is no data: "No device data in the selected period."
Every source brings its own audience along. A link in a forum or a newsletter often gets clicked on the go on a phone, an entry in a trade portal more likely at the office. If an important source shows mainly mobile, then the success of that link is decided on a small screen. In that case, check the entry page on your own phone before you start doubting the source.
Aha moments you will recognize
And sometimes one look is all it takes, and suddenly everything makes sense:
- The big link that brings nothing. A website sits at the top with plenty of visits, but the bounce rate is huge. Lots of visitors, hardly any effect. Usually the content on the linking page does not match what the visitors expected to find with you.
- The small link that shines. Few visits, but a long visit duration and plenty of follow-up pages. A source like that weighs more than its small visitor count suggests. Worth cultivating the relationship here.
- The entry page that surprises you. In the detail view you see that a link does not point to your home page but to a specific subpage. Good to know before you rebuild exactly that page.
- The source you did not even know about. Somebody mentioned you in a forum, a link collection, or an industry directory without asking you. That happens more often than people think. Take a look at what it says about you there. Sometimes it is outdated, sometimes it is the start of a useful connection.
What is in it for me?
The report shows you who sends you visitors and whether those visitors are valuable. That is worth real money as soon as you act on it:
- See where your visitors come from. Every referring website is a small recommendation. Here you see in black and white who is recommending you.
- Separate the good sources from the bad. It is not the volume that counts, it is the quality. With visit duration and bounce rate, you know right away which links bring you interested visitors.
- Cultivate relationships on purpose. If a partner delivers strong visitors, building that out pays off. And a source that only sends bouncers does not have to occupy you any longer.
- Get more of the same. Once you know which kind of website sends you good visitors, you can approach more of them on purpose. An industry portal that works almost always has siblings.
And when you have found a genuinely good source, take the simplest step first: get in touch. A short thank you to the operator, along with a pointer to something new on your side, costs five minutes and is the cheapest marketing channel there is.
Common questions
What is the difference from "Search engines" or "Social networks"?
This report only shows links from other regular websites (blogs, portals, and partner sites). Visits from Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and from newsletters have reports of their own.
Why do I see fewer websites than expected?
The spam filter is probably on (which is what we recommend) and is hiding dubious sources. On top of that, only real visitors count here. Automated programs (bots) are excluded across the board.
A website is in the list, but I cannot find a link to me there. How can that be?
There are two explanations, and you can tell which one applies from the numbers in your own table. Switch to the detailed table and take a closer look at the row. Visit duration zero and bounce rate around 100 percent? Then it is very likely spam that slipped through the filter. Entries like that come from programs that never opened a page on your site. All they want is for you to get curious and open the unfamiliar address. That is exactly what you should not do, because advertising is the best case waiting there. Just ignore the row, it disappears on its own. Normal values for visit duration and bounce rate? Then those were real visitors, and the link has since been removed or the post was moved into the archive. That happens often with news sites and blogs. A look at the trend in the detail view confirms it: if the curve breaks off on a particular day, that was the day the link disappeared.
What does the "Brand" label mean?
That several technical addresses from the same ad network were bundled into one brand ("Google Ads" for example). You can switch that off and on again with the "Group ad networks" toggle.
Why is "Google Ads" listed here and not under Campaigns?
Because those clicks arrived without tagging. Technically the ad server sent them, so they land correctly in this report. For the Campaigns report, on the other hand, the information about which ad and which campaign it was is missing. That detail is not estimated, it has to be delivered in the address of your ad. If it is missing, nobody can add it afterward. If ad networks turn up in this list, your ads are not fully tagged. So you are paying for clicks whose effect you cannot measure cleanly. What to do about it: add the usual campaign details to the target address of every ad (source, medium, and campaign name). You build the right link in a few clicks with the campaign URL builder. After that, these visitors show up where they belong: under Campaigns and under "All channels". And the entry disappears from this list as a side effect.
Why is my report almost empty on the first day?
The report fills up as soon as visitors come to you through links on other websites. At the beginning, or on smaller websites, that can take a few days.
Are few referring websites a bad sign?
Not necessarily, but it is a missed opportunity. Links from other websites bring you two things: direct visitors, which you see here, and a signal to Google that your site is worth mentioning. How that affects how findable you are is described in the Visibility report. Anyone who is well connected in their industry rarely has only two entries in this list.
What do I do with a source that sends a lot of bouncers?
First take a look at where exactly the link sits and what is written around it. Often the text promises something different from what the visitor finds with you. If you cannot change it because the website is not yours, then let it be. A link like that does no damage, it just does little for you. Put your time into the sources that work.