Written by: Anne Holz | IANR Media
A Google Analytics Referrals landing page report will tell you which pages on your site are being linked to from another site. Knowing which pages other sites are linking to is especially useful when deleting or moving content on your site.
Referral (other site) ---------- > Landing Page (page on your site)
In Google Analytics:
- Select a date range for your report
- On the left navigation click ACQUISITION>All Traffic>Referrals.
- Above the table, next to "Primary Dimension", click "Landing Page"
If you delete or change the URL of a referral's landing page, it can increase the number of "404 Page Not Found" errors your site receives. Before deleting a page, you can run a Referrals landing page report to see which sites are linking to it and determine the best way to handle them.
How to handle Referral Landing pages that have been deleted or moved
- If the page URL changed, add a redirect to the new URL
- If the page no longer exists, add a redirect to a similar page
- Customize your 404 page with links to other content users may be interested in
- Let referring sites know the URL to the page has changed or the page no longer exists and ask them to update the link on their site accordingly
To view which site is linking to a landing page, select "Source" as the "Secondary dimension".
When you run a report, if you don't recognize a referral URL or you question why it would link to your site, it may be what's called "referral spam". Don't click it! Referral spam is false data that gets injected into your analytics account. Sometimes it's used to trick a user into clicking to a spam site or downloading malicious spamware.