

Ask HN: Why so much "direct" traffic to my blog? - olalonde

For the past few days, the largest traffic source to my blog has been "(direct) / (none)". However, I'm pretty sure people aren't just typing my URL in their address bar since I have no stable readership. I get most of my traffic from getting up voted on HN / Reddit.<p>What is the likely source of this traffic? A desktop Twitter client perhaps? A desktop RSS feed reader? Don't those apps send a HTTP referrer?
======
tshtf
Here's one small contribution.

All version of Google Chrome prior to somewhere in Chrome 13 did not send a
referer header when a link was opened in a new tab:

<http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1935>

~~~
olalonde
Thanks, that is very likely the cause, about 60% of my traffic is Chrome <13.

------
stevelosh
Not all Twitter clients send a referrer header. Same goes for mail clients.
Either of those could be the cause if a link to your site got retweeted a lot
or was mentioned on a large mailing list.

