See what is bringing readers to you right now.
A traffic spike is only half the story. Sources shows whether readers arrived through search, Discover, social media, a newsletter, or an unexpected link from somewhere else.
How are readers finding us?
Top Pages tells you which story is popular. Sources explains how readers got there. The total at the top is your current active audience; each row attributes part of that audience to a medium and source.
Because the data is live, this is where you watch a campaign, a social post, a Discover surge, a search trend, or an unexpected external pickup while it is happening.
Start with the strongest source
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Medium | The channel classification supplied or inferred from referrer and campaign information, such as organic, social, referral, ai, or a UTM medium. |
| Source | The specific origin, such as a search engine, social network, website, newsletter, campaign source, or direct traffic. Recognized domains can be opened in a new tab. |
| Active Users | The current live readers attributed to the source. The count and percentage use the complete live audience as their basis. |
| Bar | A visual comparison with the strongest source in the complete result. Filtering the list does not rescale the bars and therefore preserves context. |
| Indented rows | Additional detail below a grouped source, for example a subdomain or campaign value. |
Rows are ordered by current audience size. A source can disappear when its last active reader leaves the realtime window.
See the traffic mix at a glance
The Traffic mix panel groups many detailed source rows into six editorially useful buckets and sorts the active buckets by audience size.
| Category | Typical traffic |
|---|---|
| Organic | Unpaid search traffic from search engines. |
| Google Discover | Traffic recognized as Google Discover. It is shown separately because its feed-driven behavior differs from ordinary referrals. |
| AI Assistants | Visits identified as coming from supported generative-AI or answer-engine services. |
| Social | Recognized social networks and social sharing services. |
| Referral | Other external websites plus campaign media such as email, newsletter, push, or CPC that do not fit the categories above. |
| Direct | Traffic without a usable referrer or campaign medium. This can include typed URLs, bookmarks, apps, or privacy-restricted referrals. |
Find the source you care about
Type in Filter sources to match the medium, source name, or visible child detail. Matching is case-insensitive and happens immediately on the already loaded live result.
The filter changes only the rows you see. The active-user total, percentages, Traffic mix, and bar scale continue to represent the full live audience. This lets you search for “newsletter” or a domain without losing the overall context.
Clear the field to restore every current source. No filter is stored in the URL and no new server request is required for each keystroke.
Useful newsroom workflows
Validate distribution
After publishing a newsletter or social post, search for the campaign or platform and confirm that active readers appear.
Investigate a spike
Compare Traffic mix with the strongest individual sources to decide whether a surge is search-, Discover-, social-, or referral-led.
Spot an external pickup
Look for an unfamiliar domain that suddenly contributes a meaningful share of the audience.
Check attribution
If a campaign is unexpectedly shown as Referral or Direct, review its UTM parameters and redirect chain.
Live numbers move - and that is the point
Sources refreshes automatically about every 10 seconds while the tab is visible. In a background tab the interval is reduced to about 60 seconds. When you return, the page resumes the faster live rhythm.
- Small source counts naturally fluctuate as readers enter and leave the live window.
- The same reader is represented by the currently attributed source; Source counts are not historical acquisition totals.
- Use Top Pages to see which content a source is driving now.
- Use Recap for performance over a date range.
If live source data is temporarily unavailable, NowMetrix keeps the last usable view where possible and indicates that the data is delayed.