CNS Analytics

Referrer Analysis

Where CNS traffic comes from: search engines, direct visits, and external referrers across 94 months of CloudFront logs (2018-08 to 2026-05).

Google Referrals185,5412.3% of external traffic

Google Scholar9,1820.1% of external traffic

Bing27,9910.3% of external traffic

Direct Traffic7,631,80994.1% of external traffic

Referrer Breakdown

Excluding direct and self-referrals -- shows search engines, external sites, and aggregated sources

481,635 referrals

Referrer Trend Over Time

Monthly referral volume by source. Direct traffic dominates; search engines are a small but steady stream.

94 months

Top Referring Domains

Named external domains sending traffic to CNS. 219,438 additional referrals from miscellaneous low-volume domains are grouped as "Other" and excluded.

10 sources

Search Engine Comparison

Google vs Google Scholar vs Bing as percentage of total search engine referrals

Search Engines

Google185,541 (83.3%)

Google Scholar9,182 (4.1%)

Bing27,991 (12.6%)

Direct Dominance

Direct traffic accounts for 94.1% of all external referrals, indicating most visitors type the URL directly or use bookmarks.

Academic Reach

Google Scholar drives 9,182 referrals, confirming CNS's presence in academic citation networks and research discovery.

Sci-Maps Connection

The Sci-Maps project sends 8,186 referrals, reflecting the strong relationship between CNS visualization research and the broader mapping community.