What is t.co - referral source in Google Analytics?

Are you a daily user of Google Analytics and you focus on one of the critical areas you should pay attention is Referring sites? These are the sites that sent traffic to you. This is a vital statistic for understanding where your visitors are coming from so that you can gauge the effectiveness of your advertising and social media campaigns.

Most of the time, you can tell by the address what the site is, like LinkedIn.com, Quora, m.facebook.com even plus.url.google.com.

But what about t.co? Does t.co represent a significant amount of traffic?

Here’s the answer.

That source is called Twitter’s Shortened Link.

t.co is shortened links from Twitter. Anytime you use a Tweet button on a site or compose a tweet within Twitter that includes a link, that link shortened using the t.co shortener.

So, all of those t.co referrals your site is getting is Twitter traffic.

Benefits that Twitter has worked into the t.co service:

• Malware detection is integrated
• t.co links include a custom display that shows more of the destination link
• The t.co link is concise thus saving a few characters

I hope this solves the “t.co mystery” in your Google Analytics report. Do share how much t.co source contributes to your overall traffic, and please share them below in the comments!