Referrer Analytics Plugin

A powerful site referrer analytics plugin. Get insights into types of referring traffic, automated GA campaign URLs, and useful tracking data for advanced reporting, conversation tracking, and 3rd-party integration.

On-site Reporting & Statistics

A powerful tool that allows owners to gain valuable insights into referring traffic. View on-site reporting and statistics with interactive visual graphs and detailed logging including:

• GDPR & CCPA compliant
• Date & time users were referred
• IP addresses of referred users & their geolocation
• Types of referring traffic: organic, bots, referral, etc.
• Human-readable referrers (ex. Google, Facebook, etc.)
• Referred destination URLs & top landing pages from referrers
• Toplists of referrers, types of referrers, popular landing pages & more
• Helpful recommendations to block known malicious referrers

Automated Google Analytics Integration

Automatically track Google Analytics campaign data via automated URLs from referring sources — no need to manually generate campaign URLs!

Here’s how it works:

1. User visits the site from a referring URL like Google
2. It retrieves & parses the referrers info
3. Smart redirect with UTM parameters added (i.e. utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign)

When cookies are enabled, last known UTM values and referrer info is stored and can be accessed for advanced reporting, conversion tracking, etc.

1. Upload the entire referrer-analytics folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen (Plugins > Installed Plugins).
3. Visit the plugin setting to configure as needed (Settings > Referrer Analytics).

For more information, see the plugin’s website.

1. 

   Referrer Analytics statistics & charts

2. 

   Referrer Analytics statistics & charts

3. 

   Referrer Analytics log

4. 

   Referrer Analytics settings screen

What is a “self-referral”?

A “self-referral” is traffic coming to the site that has been referred by the same site. Referrer Analytics will typically ignore this type of traffic except when ran on certain hosts such as Pantheon.io. Learn more about “self-referrals” in Pantheon’s documentation.

What aren’t my user referrers being logged?

Referrer Analytics relies on $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER]. Due to increasing privacy settings, there’s a handful of edge cases where this variable isn’t available. These include:

• “direct” visitors (typed a URL in the browser or used a bookmark)
• Followed a link from outside the browser (from an email or mobile app)
• Referred from http to https, browsers hid the referrer for security
• Browser modified to not send referrer (browser extensions)
• Using a proxy server that removes referrer headers
• Clicked a link that has an HTML5 rel=noreferrer attribute
• Uses JavaScript to link to your site (window.open or location.href)
• meta refresh redirects
• Request was made by a robot

You can choose to have a URL parameter fallback if one exists such as utm_source if the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER] is unavailable. Note that some CMS like WordPress, automatcially add rel=noreferrer to external links. You can control this from the plugin settings page.

What referrer cookies are available

When plugin cookies are enabled, referrer-specific cookies are set and can be used for advanced tracking and reporting (ex. pass UTM values to hidden form inputs).

The following cookies are available:

• referrer-analytics-referrer_name
• referrer-analytics-referrer_type
• referrer-analytics-referrer_host
• referrer-analytics-referrer_scheme
• referrer-analytics-referrer_url
• referrer-analytics-referrer_destination

What Google Analytics cookies are available?

You can access Google Analytics UTM values via cookies when plugin cookies are enabled. This can be useful with certain hosts like Pantheon, that strip this information on the backend. They also persist during the user’s session allowing advanced tracking and reporting (ex. pass UTM values to hidden form inputs).

The following cookies are available:

• referrer-analytics-utm_source
• referrer-analytics-utm_medium
• referrer-analytics-utm_campaign
• referrer-analytics-utm_term
• referrer-analytics-utm_content

v2.0.1

• IP addresses are now anyonymized to comply with privacy legislation (GDPR, CCPA, etc.). #3

v2.0.0

• Optimized JS & resource loading
• Enhanced statistics dashboard
• Re-write of the code base

v1.7.2

• Fixed overflow issue with top lists
• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts

v1.7.1

• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts
• Fixed the line charts direction
• Various UI enhancements

v1.7.0

• Various performance enhancements
• Various UI enhancements
• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts

v1.6.1

• Fix for cached CSS files

v1.6.0

• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts
• Added “(UTM Source)” to referrers that use the “URL Referrer Fallback”
• Added more charts to the Referrer Analytics dashboard
• Added a “inferred” attribute to known referrers that are defined by the utm_source

v1.5.0

• Fixed sorting issue on the log table
• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts
• Added more charts

v1.4.1

• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts
• Changed ‘backlink’ default to ‘referral’
• Enhanced the log table

v1.4.0

• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts
• Added ability to have a fallback referrer if $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] is unavailable
• Added the ability to prevent WP from automatcially adding rel="noreferrer" tags to external links
• Fixed issue with some plugin form fields not saving

v1.3.1

• Fixed PHP warning header output issue on the log page after a log is deleted for some hosts
• Fixed duplicate comma seperated IP addresses on some hosts like Pantheon
• Removed log files & now storing referred traffic in the database

v1.3.0

• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts
• Various admin UI improvements

v1.2.0

• Fixed PHP notice for Undefined index: redirect
• Updated the cookie name convention
• Changed the helper function referrer_analytics_parsed_log to referrer_analytics_parse_log
• Added more insight charts
• Minor bug fixes
• Added URL field to Defined Referrer Hosts
• Added UTM cookies

v1.1.0

• Added additional pre-defined referrer hosts
• Added paging to the Referrer Log
• Log now get’s synced with updated referrer & known hosts