How visits are attributed
How Larvabot decides a visit came from an email, a community, a directory or a backlink, using referrers and your own ref tags.
Every visit the tracking snippet records carries two clues: a ref tag in the URL, if there is one, and the referring site. Larvabot uses them to put each visit into one channel.
#The rules, in order
The first rule that matches wins:
| # | If the visit… | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | has ?ref=email (or ?ref=e123 on links in emails sent before 27 October 2026) | |
| 2 | has no referrer and no ref | Direct |
| 3 | has no referrer but some other ref or utm tag | Other referrals |
| 4 | came from a web inbox (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, Proton Mail, Zoho Mail, Fastmail) | |
| 5 | came from Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters | Communities |
| 6 | came from a directory on this project's list | Directories |
| 7 | came from the domain of a lead you've emailed | Backlinks |
| 8 | came from a search engine (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave…) | Search |
| 9 | came from anywhere else | Other referrals |
Email, Communities, Directories and Backlinks count as outreach. Search, Direct and Other referrals are shown for context.
#Links in emails
Larvabot sends links exactly as they're written in the email, with no tracking tags. A link like yourproject.com/?ref=e123 makes a personal email look like an affiliate pitch, and that costs more replies than the tag is worth.
A click from a web inbox like Gmail or Outlook still counts as Email, because the inbox shows up as the referrer. Clicks from desktop and phone mail apps carry no referrer, so they land in Direct. Replies, shown on the Sent tab, are the better measure of how an email did.
#Tagging your own links
For links you post yourself, add a ref so they're easy to spot in Where visitors came from:
https://yourproject.com/?ref=reddit-r-sideproject
https://yourproject.com/?ref=newsletter-octA link posted on Reddit is counted as Communities because of the referrer anyway. The ref makes it show up as its own named source.
utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign work too: utm_source is treated like ref.
#What can't be attributed
- Clicks from mail apps. Desktop and phone email apps send no referrer, so those clicks count as Direct.
- Private shares. Links pasted into WhatsApp, Slack or DMs usually arrive with no referrer, so they count as Direct.
- Apps and some browsers strip referrers entirely.
- Visits before the snippet was installed were never recorded.
So treat outreach numbers as a floor. The real figure is usually a bit higher.
#Only the first page counts
A visit's channel comes from the page it landed on. Clicking around your site afterwards doesn't add more visits from the same source.