How visits are attributed
How Larvabot decides a visit came from an email, a community, a directory or a backlink, using ref tags and referrers.
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=e123 (added to links in sent emails) or ?ref=email | |
| 2 | has no referrer and no ref | Direct |
| 3 | has no referrer but some other ref or utm tag | Other referrals |
| 4 | came from Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters | Communities |
| 5 | came from a directory on this project's list | Directories |
| 6 | came from the domain of a lead you've emailed | Backlinks |
| 7 | came from a search engine (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave…) | Search |
| 8 | came from anywhere else | Other referrals |
Email, Communities, Directories and Backlinks count as outreach. Search, Direct and Other referrals are shown for context.
#Ref tags in emails
When an email is sent, every link to your project's domain gets ref=e plus the lead's ID added, like https://yourproject.com/?ref=e123. A click from that email is then attributed to that exact lead, even if the reader's email app hides the referrer (most do).
Links that already have a ref parameter are left alone, so you can write your own.
#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
- 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.