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ColleenM 8:52pm, 29 July 2008
"Direct traffic is traffic whose precedence can't be ascertained, For example (over-simplified), let's say I follow your photos in a RSS reader and click on one to leave a comment; since my box isn't a web destination (you can't navigate to it), all Flickr knows is that there was a hit but that there's no track back to me. Hence, it's "direct traffic" from me to Flickr, but no back. "

" Direct Traffic basically it means everything else. It is NOT the jpg address; there are no stats for that. It can be a feed reader, or a address typed deirectly in the browser's bar, or a desktop API application that allows jumping to Flickr, etc."

Quotes from Silly Luis answers scattered throughout these threads.

The Flickr FAQ
www.flickr.com/help/stats/?search=direct+traffic#1869

says
"Referrers can be a little trickier because sometimes pages are cached by other services. Pages that are cached don't have to load a fresh copy, so those views sometimes don't register. Also, some referrers actually block their identity, so we can't trace their view to a single host. If we can't get useful referring data that view will be counted as "direct traffic". "
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ColleenM 15 years ago
I tried an experiment:

I set a bookmark for one of my photos.
I logged out and used that bookmark to view the photo.

I emailed the bookmark to a friend.
While she was logged in to Flickr, she used the bookmark to go to the photopage and fave the image.

Both of those views showed up as Direct Referrals today.
Walwyn 15 years ago
LOL.

Three weeks ago I uploaded 2 photos of Merrill Lynch in London, neither of which had more than a couple of views. Yesterday they received 28 direct traffic hits and appear to be clocking up more views today.

What could have possibly happened?
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ColleenM 15 years ago
It went under.
Dan (aka firrs) 15 years ago
What's going on. A few months back I took a picture of a whole pile of money and now it's just two dollars!

Guess how

To return to our sheep though... I wonder what level of direct traffic is typical. According to my stats 16% of views are direct - or about 80 a day at present.
Walwyn 15 years ago
I have 19% direct traffic. It occurs across all images regardless of posting time, or activity ie old and new alike.
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ColleenM 15 years ago
Mine seems to be about 12%, but I see spikes occasionally.
snufffilmcharlie Posted 15 years ago. Edited by snufffilmcharlie (member) 15 years ago
I discovered a possible source of "direct traffic" during an experiment earlier today. I logged out of Flickr, used Google to locate (what appeared to be) a number of API(!?) feeds to my stream, viewed one of my own images, and later found that this hit was registered as "direct traffic."

Given that this appeared to be an API-based stat, I am feeling concerned about Flickr security again. I'm also a bit miffed that I'm still showing up in search engines and the API after opting out of everything and hiding my profile almost 4 months ago.

Can anyone offer clarification here? Was this "direct traffic" actually produced by an RSS feed? The website in question is api.flickr.com, and I was able to locate the aforementioned feeds by entering my username into a standard Google search query.

[EDIT:] I just clicked on the RSS feed link at the bottom of my front page and discovered that the website in question is associated with RSS feeds. I'm still wondering if API hits register as "direct traffic" or if they will appear as api.flickr.com, as I happended to notice in one instance.
Walwyn Posted 15 years ago. Edited by Walwyn (member) 15 years ago
I think it depends on how the feed is being used. For example if I add the feed to my RSS reader and then click on links in my browser then they should appear as 'direct traffic', if I embed the feed into a web page then they should appear to come from that page, and if I just click the link on the api.flickr.com page then the hit will be registered from there.

I have a contact that browses using flickrfox, I know because when he comments it adds a text referral into the post the hits of course will be recorded as DT.

In the last few weeks search engine traffic had overtaken DT, but in the last few days DT has fought back and overhauled the search engines again. One photo I uploaded two weeks ago had 40 DT hits three days ago.

I think I'll have to stop posting photos of churches.
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ColleenM 15 years ago
Flickr rolled out some changes in the stats page today. One of the best was changing the term "direct traffic" to "unknown source"