How can non indexed pages (Google only) be receiving Google organic traffic in Google Analytics?
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In almost every single GA account (I've looked at hundreds) I can always find instances of non indexed pages (and I mean there's no chance these pages are indexed), marked as Google organic landing pages!?? I did notice that a Google organic entrance, and then a direct visit on secondary tab usually carries the original Google referrer. I might be totally wrong here, but I'd love to know what the heck is going on. Any ideas that I can investigate are encouraged.
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Answer:
Google Analytics automatically attributes direct visits to the visitor's previous non-direct source (if there was one) so that conversions are attributed to search or campaigns or referrals. This was so that visitor's opening of bookmarked pages would get attributed to the original source. If someone visited your site from a search, then went to a different page on the same site directly, the second visit would be attributed to the search source. The visitor didn't find that page via search, but they did find the site via search and somehow got directed there. Note that Multi-Channel Funnels handle things differently, attributing a conversion to the direct visit with the search being an assist interaction: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1319312?hl=en The web is 'stateless', meaning web servers do not remember what page you last viewed, if any. Google Analytics relies on signals from the user's browser to determine their unique identity and group various pageviews into a "session". The user's IP address, values stored in a cookie, referrer parameters sent by the users browser. If the combination doesn't provide enough information (cookies turned off, mobile phone switching to wifi and getting a new IP, open in incognitio window, etc), then Google Analytics may consider the pageview to be a landing page for a new session and/or user. Web crawlers are notorious for hitting pages on a site with no signals for Google to follow. Check the browser information and network/service provider for those pageviews. You could be seeing a home-built crawler at work.
Mike Sullivan at Quora Visit the source
Other answers
Just wanted to come back and update my original question - I found a few other reasons why this happens and also wanted to say thanks to - I wrote up the post here: https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/best-practice/how-can-non-indexable-pages-receive-google-organic-traffic/
David Sottimano
I am seeing this issue as well - but with non indexed pages showing up as "Landing pages" from organic sources. Is this a case of the GA code not firing, or something else?
Claire McEvoy
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