What is Direct Navigation Traffic?
Many old-school domain investors are most likely familiar with direct navigation, but newer domainers may not have heard the term. Direct navigation refers to traffic that results from a visitor typing a domain name directly into their web browser. Direct Navigation traffic is also known as Type-in or Zero-click traffic.
So why am I talking about DN traffic? Well, domains that bring in Direct Navigation traffic are valuable because you’re basically receiving free traffic. This gives the domain owner a head start in marketing, if they plan on monetization or building a website on it. Imagine launching a new website and immediately receiving targeted traffic, simply because of the domain’s keywords or its history.
So how does a domain automatically receive Direct Navigation traffic?
There are two ways this can happen.
1) Type-in or Zero-click Traffic
If the domain name is an Exact Match Domain (EMD), there’s a chance the domain could receive type-in traffic. For example, someone looking for a car loan, may type in carloans.com directly into the web browser, as opposed to searching for “car loans” on Google. This person could be a return visitor to the site, or someone totally new to the site with the expectation that typing in the Exact Match Domain would result in a product or information that they are looking for.
You may have heard of domainers talk about “traffic leakage”. This has a lot to do with that. This is the theory that non-com websites will leak traffic to the .com version of the domain simply because people are so accustomed to typing in .com into the web browser whenever they visit a website.
2) Domains with History
A domain may also bring in Direct Navigation traffic because of its history or existing backlink profile. There’s a whole aftermarket of domain names that were once developed (had a website) and then expired and dropped. These domains often retain backlinks they accumulated over time. Typically these backlinks don’t get removed when the domains expire because it’s so hard for webmasters to keep track of every single link on their website. Traffic then flows in from the people that visit these 3rd party sites where the links still remain. These types of domains are sometimes referred to as “SEO domains” because of their existing link juice or domain authority.
Before when I used to monetize my domains, I’d look at domain history and traffic, but not any more. These days, I mainly register and buy domains to sell. And if I do develop a domain into a website, I buy it because of the name not because it has history. That’s just me though; everyone has different priorities.
What about you… are “SEO domains” are part of your domaining or development strategy?