Hi there,

It’s challenging for me to answer as I don’t know all details.

Based on the information that I have, I would go for option 2 and evaluate the data within a few days or week to see whether it comes in as expected/desired.

The client has two websites. (website A) and (website B) Both website have different objectives. We only manage their website B and their Google Analytics property.

I noticed that, in acquisition channel, most of the traffic is coming from direct (90% traffic). Because the website B is solely cater b2b users, which is why majority of the direct traffic does not make sense to me. So I looked at the self-referral exclusion setting and found (website A i.e. “abc.com”) were added there. I believe this is the culprit, because Google uses “CONTAINS” in the self-referral section in GA that matches with everything before website A (abc.com) because it could also capture (business.abc.com) too, lets call this website B.
FYI, there is NO cross domain conversion happening from website B to A or vice versa, so it wont impact the conversion data, so we are good on that front.

I believe, ideally, the self-referral exclusion should be (business.abc.com), because we would still wants to see “www.abc.com” as referral traffic, instead of direct.

Here is my proposed solution:
I can remove the (abc.com) from the self referral exclusion list) from the (website B) property and change it to (business.abc.com = Website B) so this way, we can capture any traffic that coming to our site from http://www.abc.com appear as referral traffic and not direct.
Second option, I can just completely remove the abc.com from the list and keep the list blank. Because, we are certain that, all website B webpages have tagged properly. This way, any traffic coming from abc.com would automatically appear as referral as long as referrer passed through.

Paul, what’s your thoughts on this? Thanks in advance

Hi Ric,

This sounds like something is not properly implemented as defining these referral exclusions should not set the traffic/conversion to direct. Only if the visitor is recognized as direct on the first domain. Otherwise it should remember the original traffic source when entering the second domain.

I recommend to re-check/test the cross-domain implementation.

Also, make sure to add any 3rd party payment domains to the referral exclusion list.

Best,
Paul

Now the issue is that when visitors come from domain B to domain A (both mine), it just counts as Direct traffic. So I’m missing data which is rly imp to me to know the user journey.

Isn’t it better to just have it as referral traffic between domains by not adding it to the REL?

Hi Priscilla,
Thank you for your comment.
I haven’t dealt with it that often. But in my tests, the traffic showed up as direct.
It might have something to do with your “referral exclusion list”.
Did you include your own domain in this list?
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2795830?hl=en

Do you have a large portion of session timeouts on your site? If that’s the case and you have a good reason to, you can adjust the session timeout time.
You can find it in: property >> tracking info >> session settings.

Hope this helps!
Paul

Hi Jessica,

There are a few other things that I would recommend:
– Debug your entire tracking around this subdomain so exactly find out what is happening. Does something happen on that page that leads to a new session / cookies getting lost?
– Segment your traffic that get’s to the page where the “connection” seems to get lost. You might be able to more exactly pinpoint the problem.
– Do people spend a lot of time on this particular page/domain? It usually won’t be the (entire) cause of this issue, because a session lasts for 30 minutes.

Best,
Paul

Hi Paul,

It sounds like I just need to exclude my primary domain (“go.com”) which is done.

However, I’m still seeing referral traffic from “go.com” in my google reporting. Most of the self referral traffic is connected to the traffic hosted one subdomain. Both of which are excluded in my exclusion list.

Not sure how else to get rid of this…

Thanks for your help!
Jess

Two more sources:

“When your domain is in the exclusion list, then users can cross from one subdomain on your site to another without starting a new session. Without your domain in the exclusion list, when a user goes from one subdomain to another on your site, Analytics sees that as a referral from one hostname to another and starts a new session. As a result, your reports can have artificially inflated session counts.

When you initially set up your Analytics property, your domain is automatically added to the referral exclusion list. As a result, you shouldn’t see self-referrals if you have a web property that tracks multiple subdomains.”

“Universal Analytics includes your site’s domain in the referral exclusion list by default, so cross-subdomain tracking should work with no additional set up.

However, if your site has user journeys that cross subdomains, and the referral exclusion list does not include your site’s domain, then you can get self-referrals, as well as invalid extra sessions in reports. To fix this, make sure your domain is in the referral exclusion list.”

You don’t have to add all the subdomains.
Example:
test.go.com
test2.go.com
test3.go.com

In that case, just adding “go.com” will do.

Hope this helps!
Paul

I’ve run into this self-referral issue several times with subdomains (not really different domains) of the same site. I spoke with Google and they suggested using the referral exclusion list and NOT using cross domain tracking.

However, after adding all subdomains to the exclusion list I’m still seeing self-referrals. Any suggestions?