What is the difference between Direct access (out of site) and Direct access (continuation of visit)?

In Piano Analytics, Direct access is a direct traffic source used when a visit is not attributed to a marketing campaign and is determined by referrer information (the page URL that precedes the entry on the site).

Direct access (out of site)

Direct access (out of site) corresponds to visits that do not have a referrer (the page that precedes the entry on the site). This includes, for example:

• Internet users who type the address directly into the browser

• Users who have bookmarked the link

• Users who click a saved link that does not pass referrer information (for example, some email clients or apps)

In these cases, the referrer-related value (often surfaced as the “previous URL”) is empty, which is why reporting may show “N/A” for the source URL.

Direct access (continuation of visit)

Direct access (continuation of visit) corresponds to visits whose referrer is the site itself (the previous URL is a page on the same domain).

These are generally Internet users who resume their browsing after more than 30 minutes of inactivity. After the default inactivity timeout (30 minutes without events), a new visit is created when the next event occurs. If the previous URL belongs to the same site, Piano categorizes the new visit as a continuation and attributes it to Direct access (continuation of visit).

How Piano determines these direct access types (referrer logic)

For non-marketing visits, Piano assigns the traffic source based on the first qualifying event of the visit (commonly a page.display). The classification relies on the referrer/previous URL collected from the browser:

• No referrer available → Direct access (out of site)

• Referrer domain matches your site domain → Direct access (continuation of visit)