Difference between Organic and Natural Traffic?

[ShawnHerrick]

This is a pretty basic question, but I'm wondering if there is any meaningful difference between the terms Organic and Natural traffic? My assumption is that Organic traffic refers to traffic that comes in through search engines, whereas Natural traffic would also include people directly entering a URL, coming in through social referrals, and through links on other sites in addition to organic search. Is this correct, or are there other definitions for what these terms mean?

[JeusuDigital]

Yes you are correct with organic traffic this comes from organic searches and hits on your site, people entering the URL and going direct to your site is known as direct traffic, and then you have referral traffic which basically can come from any other site such as social referral, traffic from an app etc or even referrals from Google maps, shopping etc.

You could call organic / referral and direct all natural traffic if you was comparing it to fake traffic to your site or even search bot visits.

Hope that helps.

[SEO5Team]

Hi Shawn,

There is some discrepancy with details in regards to what each of these terms could be used for. Some see these terms as basically synonymous, as organic traffic does indeed refer to web traffic directed through search engines. Organic traffic can also include direct and social media links. Natural traffic can also be used to describe the same element, with links from search engines or any website. When traffic is generated through users directly entering a URL, this is usually referred to as “direct” traffic.

[ShawnHerrick]

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of clarification I was looking for.

[Chris.Menke]

Being a word guy, I have a little bit different take on it:

'"Natural traffic" isn't a term that's widely used in SEO.  In fact, I'm not sure I've ever actually heard it used--ever.  "Organic traffic" derives from "organic search results", which were originally the algorithmic, non-paid search results before there was Local Search. Organic traffic is that traffic that comes to your site from non-paid, search results (and technically, also not from Local Search--although that might be debatable.)