How to Find Out Where Your Website Traffic Comes From
Find where your website visitors come from in GA4: the Traffic acquisition report, what each channel means, the exact sites, and your search terms.
5 min read · Updated
Short answer
In Google Analytics 4, go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition. It shows how many visits came from each channel: Google search, social media, other websites, email, ads, AI assistants and "direct". Switch the first column to Session source / medium to see the exact sites, and use Google Search Console to see which search terms people used.
Step by step in GA4
- Open analytics.google.com and choose your property.
- Go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition.
- The table groups visits by Session primary channel group: Organic Search, Direct, Referral and so on.
- Click the drop-down above the first column and choose Session source / medium to see individual sources, for example
google / organic,facebook.com / referralornewsletter / email. - Set the date range at the top right, and tick Compare to see this month against last month.
- To see which pages each source lands on, click the + next to the first column and add Landing page + query string as a second dimension.
If the report is empty, check that the GA4 tracking code is installed on every page of your site.
- Title tag under 60 characters
- Sitemap submitted to Search Console
- Google Analytics set up correctly
- + 24 more
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Open the checklistWhat each channel means
These are GA4's default channel names and the rules Google documents for them.
| Channel | What it means | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Organic Search | Unpaid results from Google, Bing and other search engines | Includes visits from Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| Direct | GA4 could not tell where the visit came from: a typed address, a bookmark, or a link with no referrer | Often hides email, PDF and app traffic (see below) |
| Referral | A link on another website, such as a directory, a partner, or a blog that mentioned you | Webmail clicks without UTM tags can show here as mail.google.com |
| Organic Social | Unpaid visits from social sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok | Paid social ads appear as Paid Social instead |
| Visits where the source or medium is tagged as email | Only counted when your links say so, e.g. utm_medium=email | |
| Paid Search | Clicks on search ads such as Google Ads | Needs Google Ads linked, or auto-tagging, to be named correctly |
| AI Assistant | Clicks from AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude | Added in 2026; see how to track AI traffic |
| Unassigned | No rule matched | Usually a typo in UTM tags, such as utm_medium=Facebook-post |
Why "Direct" is often bigger than it should be
GA4 can only name a source if the visit tells it where it came from. Visits from these usually arrive with no referrer and fall into Direct:
- links clicked in desktop email apps such as Outlook or Apple Mail
- links in PDFs, Word documents and slide decks
- links shared in WhatsApp, Messenger, Slack and text messages
- some mobile apps that open links in their own browser
The fix is UTM parameters: tags on the end of a link that tell GA4 exactly where it came from.
How to tag your own links with UTM parameters
Add utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign to any link you share:
https://yoursite.com/offer?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=october-sale
- utm_source: who sent the visitor (
newsletter,facebook,flyer) - utm_medium: the type of channel. Use GA4's words so the visit lands in the right channel:
email,social,cpc,referral. - utm_campaign: your name for the promotion
Keep everything lower case and consistent: GA4 treats Email and email as different values. Google's free Campaign URL Builder (search "GA4 campaign URL builder") builds the link for you. Tag your email newsletter links, social bio links and QR codes on printed material; you never need to tag your own internal links.
How to see which search terms bring visitors
GA4 does not show search terms, because Google does not pass them to analytics tools. Google Search Console does:
- Open Search Console and choose your site.
- Go to Performance → Search results.
- The Queries tab lists the searches your pages appeared for, with clicks, impressions and average position.
- Click a query, then the Pages tab, to see which page ranked for it.
You can link Search Console to GA4 (Admin → Product links → Search Console links) to see this data inside Analytics as well.
Finding traffic sources for a site you don't own
You cannot see another site's analytics. Tools such as Similarweb and Semrush estimate a competitor's traffic sources and top referring sites from panel and clickstream data. Use them to compare, not as exact numbers: for small local sites the estimates can be well off.
What to do with what you find
- Organic Search is small? Your site is not ranking for much yet. Start with free keyword research and the queries Search Console already shows.
- Direct is the biggest channel? Tag your email, social and print links with UTMs before drawing conclusions.
- Social sends visits but no enquiries? Compare the landing pages those visits arrive on with the ones that convert; the post may promise something the page does not deliver.
- One referral site sends a lot? Find out why: a directory listing, a partner or a mention. Then look for more like it.
- One channel brings almost everything? That is a risk. If it changes its algorithm or its prices, your traffic goes with it.
Related questions
Frequently asked questions
- Where do I see traffic sources in Google Analytics?
- In GA4, go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition. That report lists every channel sending visitors to your site, such as Organic Search, Direct, Referral, Organic Social, Email and Paid Search, with the sessions from each. Change the first column to 'Session source / medium' to see the individual sites.
- Why does so much of my traffic show as 'direct'?
- Direct is where GA4 puts a visit it cannot attribute, not only people typing your address. Clicks from desktop email apps, PDFs, messaging apps and some mobile apps often arrive with no referrer and land in Direct. Adding UTM parameters to links you share fixes most of it.
- How do I see which search terms bring visitors to my site?
- Google Analytics does not show search terms. Use Google Search Console, which is free: Performance → Search results lists the queries your pages appeared for, with clicks, impressions and average position. You can link Search Console to GA4 to see the same data inside Analytics.
- Can I see where traffic comes from on a website I don't own?
- Only as an estimate. Tools such as Similarweb and Semrush model other sites' traffic sources from panel and clickstream data. They are useful for comparing competitors, but the figures are estimates, not measurements, and are least accurate for small sites.
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