If you’re trying to catch up on what referral trends have been over the last few years, where we’re at now, and what to expect next, here’s your ultimate guide to referral trends and benchmarks.

1. The ultimate referral guide to your audience

2. Google sends about half of external referral traffic to publishers
while Facebook hovers around 25% to 30%.

3. From August to October 2015, the top traffic sources included
Yahoo! (#3), Reddit (#9), and AOL (#12)

4. June 2015: Facebook surpasses Google as a top referring site to
Parse.ly’s network.

5. June 2016: Facebook changes its algorithm to surface more
posts from users’ friends and family

6. May 2017: Google inches closer to Facebook.

7. July/August 2017: Google surpasses Facebook.

8. July 2018: Google holds a steady pace of sending around 50%
external traffic to Parse.ly’s network

9. Google surpassed Facebook in referral traffic, due in part to
AMP.

10. External referral sources vary by category.

11. As of May 2018, Facebook was the primary referrer to lifestyle
content categories

12. Other traffic sources make moves.

13. Other traffic sources make moves.

14. Other traffic sources make moves.

15. Today: External referrals only account for half of traffic.

16. The ultimate referral guide to your audience