Original referring domain

The ‘Original referring domain’ dimension reports the first referring domain that a visitor clicked through to reach your site. Once it is set, it contains the same value for the entire lifetime of that visitor ID. This dimension is useful to understand which third-party sites originally drive traffic to your site.

Populate this dimension with data

Adobe derives this dimension from the visitor’s first referrer, using the domain portion of that referrer URL. There is no variable to set. You must configure your report suite’s Internal URL filters; failure to do so can either include internal domains or prevent external domains from appearing.

If a visitor leaves and clicks through a link on a different domain at any time, the new value is not recorded. To see new values, see Referring domain.

Dimension items

Dimension items include domains that visitors click through to your site. If a hit does not have any referrer data (either set or persisted), it groups under the dimension item "None". This dimension item means that there was no referrer value, such as if the visitor manually typed the browser address into the address bar, or clicked a bookmark.

Compare Referring domain to Original referring domain

Referring domain can change between visits. For example, a visitor arrives to your site through google.com, then a week later, arrives to your site through twitter.com. Eventually they make a purchase on your site. If using Referring domain as the dimension with last touch attribution, twitter.com gets credit for the purchase. If using Original referring domain as the dimension, google.com gets credit for the purchase regardless of attribution model.

Original referring domain never changes for the entire lifetime of a given visitor ID.