How to View Referrals in Google Analytics

Curious which websites are actively sending traffic your way? Your Google Analytics 4 account is overflowing with this data, but finding the exact report isn't always straightforward. This guide will show you exactly how to locate the referral traffic sources report in GA4, understand what you're looking at, and turn that data into actionable insights for your business.

What is Referral Traffic?

Referral traffic is any visit to your website that comes from a link on another domain. It's the digital equivalent of word-of-mouth. Someone clicks a hyperlink on another website and lands on one of your pages - that's a referral.

This is different from other traffic channels:

• Organic Search: Traffic from search engines like Google or Bing.
• Paid Search: Traffic from paid ads on search engines (e.g., Google Ads).
• Social: Traffic from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
• Direct: Traffic from users typing your URL directly into their browser or using a bookmark.
• Email: Traffic from links in email marketing campaigns.

Tracking your referral traffic is important because it shows you who is talking about you online. It helps you see the direct results of your PR efforts, affiliate programs, guest posting activities, and any other strategies focused on getting links from high-quality sites.

How to Find Your Referral Traffic Report in GA4

Unlike Universal Analytics, GA4 organizes reports around user acquisition and engagement. Finding a simple list of referral sources takes a few extra clicks if you don't know where to look. Here is the step-by-step process.

Step 1: Navigate to the Traffic Acquisition Report

Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property. In the left-hand navigation menu, click on Reports. From there, expand the Acquisition dropdown and select Traffic acquisition.

Navigation Path: Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition

Step 2: Understand the Default View

When you first open the traffic acquisition report, you'll see a chart and a data table. By default, GA4 groups this data by "Session default channel group." This shows you a high-level breakdown of your traffic sources like Organic Search, Direct, Paid Search, and Referral.

You can see referral traffic as a category here, but you can't see the specific websites sending that traffic. To do that, you need to change the primary dimension.

Step 3: Change the Primary Dimension to "Session source"

Directly above the data table, you'll see a dropdown menu that currently says "Session default channel group." Click this dropdown and search for or select Session source.

The table will now reload to show you a list of every individual source sending traffic to your site (e.g., "google.com," "bing.com," "facebook.com," etc.). This is much more specific, but it still includes all types of traffic, not just referrals.

Step 4: Filter for ONLY Referral Traffic

To isolate your referral traffic, you need to add a filter. Right above the charts at the top of the report, click the Add filter + button.

A builder will slide out from the right. Configure your filter with the following settings:

• Dimension: Search for and select Session default channel group.
• Match Type: Select exactly matches.
• Value: Select Referral.

Click the blue Apply button at the bottom right. The report will reload again, and now the data table will only show traffic from sources that GA4 categorizes as "Referrals." You have now successfully found your detailed referral traffic report!

Making Sense of Your Referral Traffic Data

Now that you have the correct data in front of you, it's time to understand what the numbers mean. Here's a breakdown of the key metrics you'll find in this report:

• Session source: This is the specific domain that sent you the traffic (e.g., forbes.com, techcrunch.com, some-niche-blog.com).
• Users: The number of unique individuals who visited your site from that source.
• Sessions: The total number of separate visits. One user can have multiple sessions.
• Engaged sessions: A session where the user was actively engaged with your site. GA4 defines this as a visit that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion event, or had at least 2 pageviews.
• Average engagement time: The average duration that your site was in the user's active browser window. A higher number generally signals higher quality traffic, as visitors are actually reading your content.
• Conversions: This is one of the most important columns. It shows how many times visitors from a specific referral source completed a key action you've defined, such as a purchase, a form submission, or a trial signup. If a source sends lots of traffic but zero conversions, it might not be a valuable source.

Spotting and Filtering Out Referral Spam

We've all seen it: a strange, unfamiliar domain sending an unusually high number of sessions with a 0% engagement rate. This is referral spam - automated traffic from bots, not real users. It clutters your reports and can skew your metrics, making it harder to trust your data.

GA4 is much better at automatically filtering out bot traffic than its predecessor, but some spammy domains can still slip through. Fortunately, you can tell GA4 to ignore them going forward.

How to List Unwanted Referrals in GA4

1. Navigate to Admin by clicking the gear icon in the bottom-left corner.
2. In the Property column, click on Data Streams and select the relevant web stream.
3. Click on Configure tag settings.
4. Under the Settings section, click Show all, then click on List unwanted referrals.
5. Here, you can set up a "match rule" to exclude spam domains. Set the Match type to Referral domain contains and enter the spammy domain (e.g., "spam-site.com") in the Domain field.
6. You can add multiple domains to this list by clicking Add condition. When you're done, click Save.

This will prevent traffic from these domains from being counted as referrals in your reports moving forward. Note that it won't retroactively remove the junk data from your historical reports.

Practical Ways to Use Your Referral Data

This report isn't just for looking at - it's for taking action. Here are a few ways to leverage your referral insights:

• Validate PR and Partner Efforts: Are you paying for featured articles or working with affiliate partners? This report shows you exactly how much traffic - and how many conversions - their links are driving. It's direct proof of your ROI.
• Build Relationships: If you see a niche blog sending you consistent, high-quality traffic, reach out to them! Thank them for the mention and explore ways to collaborate further, like a guest post or a joint webinar.
• Uncover Partnership Opportunities: Do you see an unexpected website in your top referrers? Investigate their site. They might be a perfect candidate for a more formal affiliate partnership or co-marketing campaign.
• Refine Your Content Strategy: Notice that a specific guest post you wrote is your #1 referral source? That's a strong signal telling you what topics and platforms resonate with high-value audiences. Double down on that strategy.

Final Thoughts

Finding your referral traffic in GA4 is a simple process once you know which report to use and how to filter it. By customizing the Traffic acquisition report, you can identify your top referring domains, assess the quality and engagement of the traffic they send, and make smarter decisions to grow your digital footprint.

Navigating the various reports in Google Analytics can be time-consuming, especially when you need quick answers. At Graphed, we built our platform to eliminate this friction. Instead of clicking through menus and manually applying filters, we let you simply ask what you need in plain English - like "Show me my top 10 referral sources by conversions last month." We connect directly to your Google Analytics account to build live dashboards in seconds, freeing you up to act on your data instead of just chasing it down.