What is dev.to in my analytics?

Why visits show it

On dev.to a link to your site can sit in an article you wrote, an article someone else wrote, a comment, or your profile. When a reader clicks it, the browser tells your site where they came from. Because browsers default to a referrer policy that sends only the origin to another site, that is dev.to and no more.

If you cross-post articles from your own blog, the editor guide has a front matter field for that, canonical_url, which names where the original lives. It is about search engines, not about tracking: it doesn’t add anything to the links in the article.

What it hides

Everything after the host. A tutorial you posted two months ago, a reply you left on a thread today and a mention in someone else’s list all appear as one dev.to row. If you publish there regularly, the row grows, and you still can’t say which piece is doing the work.

It also can’t tell a reader who clicked through to try your product from one who clicked a link to a code sample. Both count as a visit from dev.to.

How to see which article it was

Tag the links in what you write. Tags are part of the address, so they arrive whatever the browser sends:

https://example.com/?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=rate-limiting-tutorial

Use the article’s slug as utm_campaign. If the same article also runs on your blog and on Medium, keep the campaign and change utm_source, so you can see which copy brings the readers who stay. Links in comments can stay untagged: the untagged remainder then reads as “comments, profile and other people’s posts”.

Where it goes in your reports

Whether a tool files dev.to as social or as a plain referral depends on its own list of social sites. Check your tool’s rule once.

With Nordva Launch

Launch counts dev.to as referral, not social, unless the link says otherwise: a UTM tag that names a channel wins over the referrer, so utm_medium=social files it under social and the campaign is kept either way. Paying customers by referring site work on every plan once Stripe is connected; grouping them by utm_campaign needs Builder.