# Referrer conditions

Target visitors by the website that first sent them to you. You can check a referring domain or URL, or whether the browser supplied a referrer at all.

Available on the Grow, Scale, and Pro plans.

You can show visitors a message based on the website that first sent them to you, using the referring address their browser shared.

## What it checks

**Referred By** conditions use the referrer associated with the visitor's first recorded page. They don't switch to the most recent internal page each time the visitor follows a link on your site.

## When to use it

Use a referrer condition to target traffic from a particular website or referring page, or to distinguish arrivals with and without a referrer.

If the referrer is incomplete, [UTM parameter conditions](https://rightmessage.com/help/conditions-utm) can give you explicit campaign context. To check the visitor's current and previous pages on your site, use [Pages and visits conditions](https://rightmessage.com/help/conditions-pageviews).

## Options

### What to match

| If you'd like to match…                               | Choose                            | Value field                                                    |
| ----------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------- |
| An empty first recorded referrer                      | **No one (direct traffic)**       | None                                                           |
| A nonempty first recorded referrer                    | **Any site (not direct traffic)** | None                                                           |
| A hostname or one of its subdomains                   | **Specific domain**               | Domain, initially blank                                        |
| A text comparison against the first recorded referrer | **Specific URL**                  | Operator and URL or text value, initially **Equals** and blank |

The domain field takes a hostname such as `partner.example.com`, without a protocol or page path.

### How to compare a URL

**Specific URL** offers **Equals**, **Does not equal**, **Contains**, **Does not contain**, **Starts with**, **Ends with**, **Wildcard match**, **Is set**, and **Is not set**.

**Equals**, **Does not equal**, and **Starts with** validate the comparison as a URL. The other text operators allow a partial value. **Is set** and **Is not set** don't need a comparison value, even if the editor keeps the value field visible.

RightMessage removes a trailing slash from the recorded referrer and your comparison value before matching. Other text comparisons are case-sensitive. The [text operator reference](https://rightmessage.com/help/condition-builder-reference#text-operators) covers comma-separated alternatives and wildcard behavior.

## Examples

A **Specific domain** rule for `facebook.com` also matches a recorded referrer on `m.facebook.com`. It doesn't match `notfacebook.com` just because the name contains the same letters.

![Referral condition matching the facebook.com domain](https://rightmessage.com/help/screens/segmentation-referring-domain.light.webp)

If someone follows a link to your site from [WorkForge](https://workforge.rightmessage.com), you could check for a particular referring page. For example, **Specific URL → Contains** with `/solutions/agencies.html` matches a recorded referrer that includes that path, such as `https://workforge.rightmessage.com/solutions/agencies.html`.

Use a domain rule instead when the browser supplies only the referring hostname.

## Things to know

### Missing referrers

Direct traffic means the browser supplied no referrer. Someone may have typed your address, but bookmarks, apps, privacy settings, and referrer policies can also omit it.

**Any site (not direct traffic)** means a nonempty referrer was recorded. This condition doesn't separately classify same-site and external traffic. The source labels in Activity use their own arrival classification.

A missing referrer can satisfy **Is not set** and negative text comparisons against a nonempty value. **Is set** requires a nonempty recorded referrer. An unavailable historical page isn't the same as a known page with an empty referrer.

### How long the history lasts

The first recorded arrival can still apply after the visitor browses elsewhere or returns later. Supported first-referrer comparisons can also use retained attribution data. This source has no first-versus-last selector or duration field.

History belongs to the browser and depends on available storage. Clearing browser data or using another browser can establish a different first arrival. RightMessage can't reconstruct a referrer the browser never supplied.