What do producthunt.com and ?ref=producthunt mean in my analytics?
23 September 2026 · by Nordva, who make Nordva Launch
The short answer
Both mean the visit came from Product Hunt. The producthunt.com referrer appears when a link there lets the browser say where the click came from. The ?ref=producthunt ending is added by Product Hunt to the product links it shows. It stays in the address whatever happens to the referrer, so a visit that carries only the ref value looks direct in tools that ignore it.
- Referrer
- producthunt.com
- What sends it
- A link clicked on Product Hunt
- Nordva Launch counts it as
- Social
- Also shows up as
- www.producthunt.com · ?ref=producthunt
Two signals, often not both
A product page on Product Hunt links to the product’s website with ?ref=producthunt added to the end of the address. The value is part of the address, so it arrives whatever the browser does with the referrer.
The referrer is less certain. A link can carry rel="noreferrer", which tells the browser to leave the referrer out entirely (MDN). When a Product Hunt link does, the click reaches you like this:
- referrer: none
- landing address:
https://example.com/?ref=producthunt
When it doesn’t, you also see producthunt.com as the referrer. www.producthunt.com and producthunt.com are the same site.
How to check it on your own listing
Product Hunt changes its pages from time to time, so check yours rather than trusting any page, this one included. Open your product page, right-click the link to your website and copy the address: if it ends in ?ref=producthunt, that is what arrives. To see the rel value, inspect the link in your browser’s developer tools.
What it hides
A visit with no referrer and no UTM tags is filed as direct. If your tool ignores the ref value, a good launch day can show up as a burst of direct visits and a small producthunt.com line. Look for the ref value in your landing page addresses, or in a separate “ref” field if your tool keeps one.
How to count it properly
The ref value is a convention, not a UTM tag, and not every tool reads it as a source. Tag the links you post yourself with UTM values, in your maker comment, your newsletter and your social posts about the launch:
https://example.com/?utm_source=producthunt&utm_campaign=launchWhether the launch was worth it, and how to judge it after 30 days, is in should you launch on Product Hunt.
With Nordva Launch
Launch counts producthunt.com as social, and a click that arrives with nothing but ?ref=producthunt too: when there’s no utm_source, the ref value counts as the source. utm_source=producthunt or utm_source=ph count as social too, and a UTM tag that names a channel wins over the referrer. Tag the links you control, so each post or comment can be told apart.
When Launch is the wrong tool
If you just want to see how many people clicked through on launch day, any analytics tool that shows landing URLs will do. Launch is for when you want to know which of them signed up and paid, weeks later.
- Why do my URLs have ?ref=producthunt on them?
- Why does Product Hunt traffic show as direct?
- What is www.producthunt.com referral traffic?
- Product Hunt: a product page, whose website link carries ?ref=producthunt (read 23 September 2026)
- MDN: rel=noreferrer, which tells the browser to leave out the Referer header (read 23 September 2026)