Google adds new Referrer URL to help publishers keep track on image search traffic


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It is often not that easy for webmasters to keep a track and understand the role Google Images plays in driving site traffic. With an aim to fix this, Google today announced that it will be rolling out a new referer URL specific to Google Images over the next few months.

This will be a part of the HTTP header and indicates the last page the user was on and clicked to visit the destination webpage. In case you are using a software to track or analyze website traffic, Google wants you to be prepared for this change. It also says to make sure that you are ingesting the new referer URL, and attribute the traffic to Google Images. The new referer URL: https://images.google.com.

For those who are using the Google Analytics to track site data, the new referral URL will be automatically ingested and traffic will be attributed to Google Images appropriately. To be clear, this will not change the Search Console. Webmasters will continue to receive an aggregate list of top search queries that drive traffic to their site. The new referer URL will have the same country code top-level domain (ccTLD) as the URL used for searching on Google Images.

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