Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#1

Post by thiele » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 5:39 PM UTC

Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)
blog.justinthiele.com

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#2

Post by turoczy » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

Thanks for writing this up. It's interesting to see how rapidly the traffic trails off these days.

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#3

Post by kbar13 » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 5:52 PM UTC

it's probably a better idea for the browser to handle the scrolling.

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#4

Post by gk1 » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 5:55 PM UTC

> (annoyingly, traffic from Hacker News is counted as ‘Direct’ and not a ‘Referral’ in analytics, so it’s hard to get actual numbers)

You can edit how sources are defined using Custom Channel Groupings. So you can define traffic from HN as Social or Referral. Unfortunately this settings won't be retroactive, but it will work for future traffic.

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#5

Post by thiele » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:00 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #4

> (annoyingly, traffic from Hacker News is counted as ‘Direct’ and not a ‘Referral’ in analytics, so it’s hard to get actual numbers) You can edit how sources are defined using Custom Channel Groupings. So you can define traffic from HN as Social or Referral. Unfortunately this settings won't be retroactive, but it will work for future traffic.

Great tip! I'll set that up.

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#6

Post by thiele » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:02 PM UTC

kbar13 wrote: post #3

it's probably a better idea for the browser to handle the scrolling.

Agreed. The scrolling function was part of the Wordpress theme. I find it kind of annoying as well.

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#7

Post by yahelc » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:30 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #4

> (annoyingly, traffic from Hacker News is counted as ‘Direct’ and not a ‘Referral’ in analytics, so it’s hard to get actual numbers) You can edit how sources are defined using Custom Channel Groupings. So you can define traffic from HN as Social or Referral. Unfortunately this settings won't be retroactive, but it will work for future traffic.

That's not the issue here. The issue is that Hacker News is on HTTPS, but the link he posted to dictionarydomains.co isn't. Browsers don't pass a referrer on links between HTTPS->HTTP. So, visits from HN don't have a referrer. Custom Channel Groupings won't help in this case, because GA is completely blind to what visits are referrer-blocked HTTPS

I've seen people bypass this by either:

1. Having a HN specific URL (sometimes just ?hn attached to the URL)

2. Just having HTTPS landing pages.

One thing that could help fix this behavior (on newer browsers) would be for HN to explicitly authorize passing the referrer using `` or "origin"

EDIT: Filed a bug to get this implemented on HN, since Chrome and Safari support it, and Firefox support is ongoing: https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues/68

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#8

Post by samuelhulick » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 7:36 PM UTC

Great write-up! What do you plan on doing with your email list?

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#9

Post by gk1 » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 7:37 PM UTC

yahelc wrote: post #7

gk1 wrote: post #4

> (annoyingly, traffic from Hacker News is counted as ‘Direct’ and not a ‘Referral’ in analytics, so it’s hard to get actual numbers) You can edit how sources are defined using Custom Channel Groupings. So you can define traffic from HN as Social or Referral. Unfortunately this settings won't be retroactive, but it will work for future traffic.

That's not the issue here. The issue is that Hacker News is on HTTPS, but the link he posted to dictionarydomains.co isn't. Browsers don't pass a referrer on links between HTTPS->HTTP. So, visits from HN don't have a referrer. Custom Channel Groupings won't help in this case, because GA is completely blind to what visits are referrer-blocked HTTPS I've seen people bypass this by either: 1. Having a HN specific URL (s…

Thanks for that detailed explanation. I learned something new.

Do you know if it's the same case if the referrer link is HTTP->HTTPS?

Re: Show HN: The HN effect on Dictionary Domains (traffic and revenue numbers)

#10

Post by yahelc » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 7:39 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #9

yahelc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the issue here. The issue is that Hacker News is on HTTPS, but the link he posted to dictionarydomains.co isn't. Browsers don't pass a referrer on links between HTTPS->HTTP. So, visits from HN don't have a referrer. Custom Channel Groupings won't help in this case, because GA is completely blind to what visits are referrer-blocked HTTPS I've seen people bypass this by either: 1. Having a HN specific URL (s…

Thanks for that detailed explanation. I learned something new. Do you know if it's the same case if the referrer link is HTTP->HTTPS?

No, the only problem case is HTTPS->HTTP.

Default behaviors:

HTTP->HTTP: Referrer

HTTP->HTTPS: Referrer

HTTPS->HTTPS: Referrer

HTTPS->HTTP: No Referrer :(