Types of Domain Traffic (Search Engine, Direct Navigation, Expired Links)

This is an attempt to summarize the different origins of ‘natural’ domain traffic on the Internet. I am concentrating on ‘natural’ traffic here, so I am not including PPC ads or similar means to generate traffic. I came across three measurable main types of traffic that can be generated by a domain, but I think that there will be more categories added as tracking improves – please feel free to comment, I’d love to hear from you.

1. Search Engine Traffic

This is traffic that originally is generated by means of a search term on a search engine. The user is then referred to the target site from the search results.

You can identify this type of traffic by taking a closer look at who refers your users to your website. In the logfiles you will also be able to identify the queries which lead the user to your site. Often this can be used in order to optimize your site so your users find the information they are looking for as quickly as possible.

In order to improve this type of traffic, one often needs to builds an ‘authority site’ on the topic that goes along with the domain name. This can be done by either blogging, re-posting excerpts from other sites (possibly in conjunction with comments etc.). Another possible source for content are free article websites. To improve this type of traffic, SEO (search engine optimization) strategies can be employed.

2. Direct Navigation or Type-In traffic

The user types the name directly into the address bar of the browser, accesses it from a bookmark or has it set as the browser’s homepage. Many users use domain names as a search term (I know that this is something people often don’t believe, but the right name will generate a significant amount of qualified type-in traffic). So a user actually looking for used cars in Toronto, would directly type “torontousedcars.com” into his browser’s navigation bar. Those users often do not distinguish between a search and entering a domain name.

It would be very interesting to differentiate between bookmarked/homepage and actual typed in traffic, but this is difficult to track without using cookies. For example you would be able to see if an Internet Explorer user bookmarks your site (the web browser will access the ‘favicon.ico’ at this time), set a cookie and identify further visits from the same user by querying the cookie.

Another possible origin for this type of traffic includes Instant Messaging and mail, which could form an additional “Word of Mouth” Category. As Brian (my co-worker) pointed out a couple of days ago, this traffic could also originate from print, TV, flyers and other forms of advertising (I see the URL, I remember it or write it down and type it in at a later time). Currently the only way to track this type of traffic separately would be to use a unique URL/domain for every publication.

3. Typo Traffic

This category monetizes miss-spellings of popular high-traffic domains. If investing into this type of domains, one should be very careful to avoid trademark conflicts etc.

4. Linked Traffic (expired/non-expired)

Domainers will pick up domains that have previously been used for an active website. Often these sites experience residue web-traffic that originates from previous links to the site and also from search engine listings. When the original registrant fails to renew their domain name, the new owner buys these names at the dropped names services. Good names will mostly be sold in an auction.

You will be able to identify this type of traffic by checking the referrer URL in your log files. If a site with this type of traffic just serves PPC ads and no content, you will often see the traffic drop off after a couple of months (as search engines might drop them from their index). If this type of site is developed, it might be able to maintain the benefit from the previously existent site.