“In Google Analytics, We Get Direct Traffic Spikes. Why?”

One reason for seeing huge spikes in direct traffic in Google Analytics may be due to Google Discover.
SIA Team
December 1, 2021

During the English Google SEO Office-Hours From November 26, 2021, Google’s John Mueller addressed a question in an area he wasn’t too familiar with: Google Analytics, particularly having to do with a direct traffic spike:

“ In Google Analytics, our organic traffic, sometimes a huge amount of traffic starts dropping into the direct channel. What could be the reasons behind this?”

John’s response was:

“So on the one hand, I don’t know that much about Google Analytics, so I can’t give you detailed information on what specifically is happening there. 

“But one of the things that could be playing a role is Google Discover. In particular, Google Discover, I think, is mostly seen as direct traffic in Google Analytics.

“And Google Discover is sometimes very binary, in the sense that it’s either you get a lot of traffic, or you don’t get a lot of traffic from Google Discover. So that could be something where, if you’re just looking at Analytics, you might see those spikes kind of happening there.

“ In Search Console, there’s a separate report for Google Discover. So you could double-check in Search Console and see: is there something happening with Google Discover or not? ”

One thing I’d add is that, in Analytics, if you see a spike in direct traffic, there’s an anomaly feature that may provide some insight.

Source: Google Search Central YouTube channel