Why is search and referral traffic decreasing while Direct Entry increases (Safari 26)?

An issue with Safari has been identified that can cause visits from search engines and other websites to appear as Direct Entry in Matomo. You may notice fewer visits attributed to Google or other sources, alongside an increase in Direct Entry traffic.

This behaviour has been linked to privacy restrictions in Safari 26 and later. These affect Matomo Cloud’s tracking CDN, which provides the JavaScript tracking library used by the Matomo tracking code on your website. The issue is caused by Safari’s browser restrictions rather than an error in your Matomo configuration.

We are working on a solution and will update this article as further information becomes available.

How does this affect my reports?

The main impact is on Acquisition > All Channels, Search Engines and Websites reports. Dashboards, scheduled reports and segments using these figures can reflect the same differences.

You may also notice the following:

• Lower Search Engines traffic, particularly Google, and higher Direct Entry traffic.
• Fewer visits attributed to referring websites.
• A more noticeable shift for Safari visitors than for visitors using other browsers.
• Broadly stable clicks in search reporting tools, despite declining Search Engines visits in Matomo.
• Other factors can also affect these reports. Search clicks and Matomo visits are different metrics and will not match exactly.

The visits are still recorded, but their original source may be missing. For example, a visit from a Google search result may appear as Direct Entry. A decline in attributed search traffic therefore does not necessarily mean fewer people are finding your website through search.

Reason for this change

Safari 26, released in September 2025, introduced additional privacy restrictions that can hide referring-source information from certain scripts. This behaviour can occur in regular browsing with default privacy settings.

These restrictions affect cdn.matomo.cloud, the domain Matomo Cloud uses to serve the JavaScript tracking library to visitors’ browsers. The code can load successfully and record the visit while Safari prevents it from reading the referring URL.

The reporting impact depends on the proportion of visitors using affected Safari versions. Read more in Apple’s explanation of the Safari 26 privacy changes.

Does this affect Cloud and On-Premise?

• Matomo Cloud: This issue affects visitors using Safari 26 and later when your website loads the Matomo JavaScript tracking library from cdn.matomo.cloud.
• Matomo On-Premise: On-Premise installations do not generally rely on Matomo Cloud’s tracking CDN. However, Safari restrictions may still apply depending on where their tracking code is hosted.

Technical note: On-Premise installations that do not load tracking code from cdn.matomo.cloud are not affected by this specific domain classification.

Code served from the tracked website’s own domain or subdomain is in a first-party context; code served from a separate domain is in a third-party context. Third-party hosting alone does not trigger the restriction: Safari’s classification of the script also matters.

This issue is not specific to Matomo. We are aware of other services, including analytics tools, that have documented similar effects from Safari’s privacy protections.

Next steps

When reviewing your reports:

1. Check whether declining search or referral traffic coincides with rising Direct Entry.
2. Compare Safari traffic with other browsers over the same dates.
3. Keep this attribution limitation in mind when assessing acquisition performance.

You do not need to change your tracking setup at this stage. We are assessing how to resolve the issue and this article will be updated as further information becomes available.

For additional clarification, contact Matomo Support.