Sealmetrics is a privacy-first web analytics tool that does not use cookies or other tracking technologies to identify users. Because of this, understanding where your traffic comes from relies heavily on a key piece of information: the referrer.
What is the Referrer?
The referrer is the webpage URL that leads a visitor to your site. For example, if someone clicks a link to your site from a Google search result, the referrer will be https://www.google.com.
Sealmetrics uses the referrer to determine the source of each visit—or hit—and categorizes the traffic accordingly.
How Sealmetrics Classifies Traffic
Here’s how Sealmetrics interprets each hit based on the referrer:
1. SEO (Organic Search)
If the referrer is a search engine like Google (google.com), Bing (bing.com), or DuckDuckGo (duckduckgo.com), the hit is classified as SEO.
Example:
Referrer: https://www.google.com
→ Traffic Source: SEO
2. Social (e.g., X, Facebook)
If the referrer is a social media platform, like X (x.com) or Facebook (facebook.com), the hit is classified as Social.
Example:
Referrer: https://x.com
→ Traffic Source: X (Social)
3. Direct
If the referrer is completely empty, it usually means that the visitor:
Typed the URL directly into the browser
Bookmarked the site
Came from an untracked source (e.g., from an app or secure email client)
In this case, the hit is marked as Direct traffic.
Example:
Referrer: [empty]
→ Traffic Source: Direct
4. Internal Page Views
If the referrer is the same domain as your website, it means the visitor navigated from one page to another within your site. These hits are considered internal page views, not new visits.
Example:
Referrer: https://yourwebsite.com
→ Internal navigation (Page View)
Why This Matters
Since Sealmetrics doesn’t rely on cookies, understanding traffic sources through referrer data is critical. This approach keeps your site compliant with privacy regulations like GDPR and ePrivacy, while still giving you meaningful insights into where your visitors are coming from.