Why does Google Analytics show false referrals?
- by Peter Merrill
Ever since Google revamped their Analytics interface I've been noticing a weird "bug" while viewing the "Real-Time" overview area. From this area I can obviously see live stats of visitors to my website but when I visit my website by opening a new tab (Chrome) and manually visit website the real time stats sometimes look like the image linked below.
http://i.stack.imgur.com/mfniY.png
Is there any reason why Google is saying that I was referred by Stack Overflow when I'm visiting my website from a new tab? Could this be something do to with how I installed the analytics on my site or could this be an issue with browser cookies?
Have anyone else noticed this?
I am mainly concerned about this because in the standard reporting area of my Analytics panel my referral stats are getting thrown off every time I visit my own website.