Why am I seeing so many referalls to my root domain from Facebook in Google Analytics?

[TexAgs]

When we look at referalls from Facebook in Google Analytics, more than 50% (and sometimes upwards of 80%) of the traffic we're getting is listed as landing on our root domain. The thing is, we don't have any direct links TO our root domain on our Facebook page. So is this legitimate traffic, and how are they getting to our page if we have no links to it?

We do post links to stories, videos, etc, but those are to the individual pages, not to our root domain. When I look at those pages that we link to, they do have traffic numbers, but nothing compared to the root domain. Any thoughts would be helpful.

Thanks.

[wanatop]

Hello,

It's very rare, it may be that you have some kind of redirection and rewrite your URL, which is confusing Analytics.

Often web technology does not support automatic analysis programs.

It could also be that you had a link to the home page in the information section of the fanpage.

What happens to you is not normal, however it is more about using Analytics with SEO issues.

Greetings.

[TexAgs]

Thanks Alberto. I'll talk with our developer to see if he can take a look at what you're talking about. Interestingly, we do have a link to our page in the "About" section, but it's actually pointing to a different page that barely gets ANY traffic, and none from Facebook. So nobody is clicking that at all.

[William.Lau]

There is a difference between referral source and referral path. I think the bigger question is what the referral path is. You should be able to view where the hit is coming from Facebook.

And as Alberto stated, it could be a rewrite, which is how Analytics classifies a URL path.

[TexAgs]

The "shared URL" is our root domain.

When you look at the "full referrer" to that shared URL, you get 5 results (attached):

ScreenShot2014-01-21at25427PM.png

[William.Lau]

I guess they don't show the post that it was clicked from, or it was clicked from the news feed section.

What are the page metrics? Bounce rate, exit, visit duration etc. If you are not actively promoting on Facebook and or active users/readers mentioning your brand, it would be extremely odd that you would get that much from Facebook.

It could be purchased traffic, have you hired someone to do this for you? I know there are ways to spoof traffic to look like its coming from a source.

[TexAgs]

Thanks for the responses. Visit duration for the root domain is 9:31, with an average of almost 10 pages/visit. And while we ARE actively promoting on Facebook, we don't have a link to that specific page. I'm doing an experiment this week - not posting anything at all and seeing if that affects traffic numbers. I have a feeling it won't.

And no, we don't have any purchased traffic that I'm aware of.