Parse.ly Product & Support Updates

Apple’s iOS 26 update introduces privacy enhancements that are affecting referrer data across the web. If you’ve noticed an increase in direct traffic in your Parse.ly dashboard recently, this update is likely the cause.

What’s happening

Safari in iOS 26 includes expanded privacy protections that limit referrer information sent to websites. According to WebKit’s documentation, Safari’s Advanced Fingerprinting Protection now “prevents known fingerprinting scripts from reading state that could be used for navigational tracking, such as query parameters and document.referrer.”

In practice, this means a significant portion of traffic from iOS 26 devices arrives without referrer data and is therefore categorized as “Direct” in analytics platforms, including Parse.ly.

What we’re seeing

Across the Parse.ly network, we’ve observed a notable increase in sessions without referrer data from iOS 26 devices. Previous iOS versions typically showed around 20% of sessions without a referrer. With iOS 26, that average percentage has increased substantially to around 65%.

iOS 26.2, which began rolling out to developers on December 8 and saw full public release on December 12.

What this means for your data

An increase in direct traffic doesn’t mean your audience behavior has fundamentally changed. Your readers are still arriving from social media, search, email newsletters, and other referral sources—Safari is simply no longer passing that information along in many cases.

This change primarily affects:

• Visitors using Safari on iOS 26 or later
• Visitors using Safari on macOS Tahoe
• Campaign tracking parameters (such as UTM parameters) in some scenarios

What you can do

• Watch for trends: Compare your referrer breakdown before and after iOS 26 adoption increases to understand the impact on your specific audience.
• Consider your mobile audience: Sites with higher iOS and Safari usage will likely see more pronounced effects.

This is part of a broader industry shift toward privacy-first browsing. Unfortunately, there’s no technical workaround for these browser-level changes. Parse.ly will continue to report referrer data accurately when it’s available, while respecting the privacy choices users and browsers make.

If you have questions about changes in your traffic data, reach out to us at support@parsely.com.

Parse.ly will expand data exports to include the Aggregators and AI referrer categories introduced in the Referrer Dashboard refresh. This update will ensure consistent, complete data across your exports and dashboard views.

The new columns will appear in reports run beginning 15:00 UTC on Tuesday, Nov. 18.

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What’s new

• New referrer categories in exports
  Exported data now includes Aggregator and AI referrer categories, matching what appears in the dashboard.
• Improved data consistency
  The referrer categories in CSV and API exports now align with the categories shown in your Referrers tabs and reports.
• Note to users importing Stats Over Time CSV files
  The Aggregators and AI columns will be added to the CSV exports, following the Social refs column. If you are relying on a specific column order for data imports, note the changes that will occur with this update.
  

We’re excited to announce that you can now inject and configure the required JavaScript snippet for Parse.ly Headline Testing directly from your WordPress Admin area. This update to the Parse.ly Plugin helps your team set up and manage headline testing without manually injecting scripts.

This functionality is available beginning with version 3.21.0 of the plugin.

Why it matters

Until now, setting up Parse.ly Headline Testing required manually inserting JavaScript snippets. This new update removes that friction—helping teams experiment faster, learn what resonates with readers, and continuously improve engagement with less setup time.

Whether your site publishes breaking news or evergreen content, Headline Testing helps your editors make data-driven decisions that boost performance.

What’s included

• Headline Testing Configuration: Enable or disable Parse.ly Headline Testing directly in your WordPress Admin.
• One-line Script Injection: Automatically adds the Parse.ly Headline Testing script (https://experiments.parsely.com/vip-experiments.js)—no manual code required.
• Advanced Installation Option: Inline headline testing logic for developers who need deeper control.
• Flicker Control: Reduce visual flicker when swapping headlines (available with Advanced Installation).
• Live Updates: Automatically refresh headline variations on infinite-scroll or dynamically loaded pages.
• Granular Settings: Adjust Live Update Timeout and control behavior after page load.

For now, experiments themselves still need to be created and managed directly from the Parse.ly Dashboard. We’re actively exploring ways to bring full experiment management directly into WordPress in a future update.

Get started

To configure Headline Testing:

1. In your WordPress Admin sidebar, go to Parse.ly → Settings.
2. Select the Headline Testing tab.
3. Choose your preferred installation method and configuration options.
4. Click Save Changes

For best results, use the One-line Snippet method unless your site uses custom caching or rendering logic. Visit your homepage’s source code to confirm the headline testing script is injected correctly.

For detailed documentation, see the Parse.ly Plugin Headline Testing Documentation.

Parse.ly has released important improvements to referral traffic, especially from Google. These updates will make it easier to distinguish between Google Search and Google Discover, track emerging referral patterns and react quickly to traffic spikes.

What’s new

• The Referrers page (located within the Traffic menu) will split real-time Google traffic into two sources: Google Search and Google Discover.
• The Referrers page will include tabs for overview, categories and groups to better organize traffic insights.
• The Referrer Groups tab will include two new groups that preserve historical consistency with previous tracking:
  • Google (Discover & Search): combines Google Search and Google Discover, maintaining the same aggregate view of Google traffic used before this update.
  • Legacy Search Referrers: Contains all sources that were included in the Search referrer category prior to October 15, 2025.
• The Referrers page will include new referrer categories for Aggregators and AI referrals.
• The Referrers categories tab will include a new stacked chart to showcase referrer category trends over time.

Why this matters

• You will be able to take advantage of trending stories and spikes from Google Discover as they happen.
• You will have a clearer view of shifting traffic patterns over time.

Overlay improvements

Parse.ly has released important updates to the Overlay that include:

• New color scale: The Overlay now uses a refreshed color scale, moving from purple to light green. Purple represents the lowest performance values, while light green represents the highest, making it easier to interpret differences at a glance.
• More accurate metric labels: The metric label now uses “percentage points (pp)” to reflect absolute change, rather than suggesting relative change. For example, an increase from 2% to 10% click-through rate will display as +8pp.
• Flexible comparison ranges: Previously, comparisons were fixed to 10 minutes vs. a six-day average. You can now select your own windows, such as two hours vs. five days, and compare against the same period in the past. Past-period comparisons can range from one day to one month, making it easier to evaluate performance in different publishing cycles. A new five-minute data view also allows teams to monitor changes as they happen.
• Badge size metric: For teams using Overlay in fullscreen mode, a new option lets you enlarge metrics for easier viewing.

These updates are a direct response to customer requests. Please keep the feedback coming as the team continues working on a complete overhaul to the Overlay experience. Stay tuned.

Improvements & Bug Fixes

• The issue where Path filters were not being applied in Goals has been resolved.
• The save button in Goal creation is now disabled when ‘0’ is entered as the goal number, preventing the creation of unnecessary goals.
• Switching between Pulse and Historical views should now behave correctly, and the graph will no longer block you from changing the date range on some listing pages.

Parse.ly dashboard navigation has been streamlined to make it faster and easier to access favorite features. The updated navigation includes collapsible menus that organize related features for a more intuitive experience.

Key improvements:

• Streamlined navigation: Related features are organized into collapsible menus for a more intuitive experience. 
• Quick access to essentials: Goals and Google Search Console are in the main navigation for faster access.
• Improved saved views:
  • Recently accessed views appear in the dropdown for quick selection.
  • Mark your most-used menu items as favorites for instant access.
  • Manage all saved views from a new dedicated page.
• Mobile-optimized: The navigation is responsive, allowing a seamless and consistent experience across devices. 
• New feature highlights: New menu items are highlighted to visually remind you of the new features we’ve added.
• Enhanced design: Fresh styling for alerts, notifications, and menu elements.

Posts Count Added to Goals Tracking

You can now track the number of posts published in a given period using Parse.ly Goals. This makes it easier to see if you’re meeting your publishing targets.

Improvements & Bug Fixes:

• Historical charts on the Overview listings now display as a bar chart in historical mode and as a line chart in pulse mode.
• An issue where campaign filters were being reset after a few seconds in the pulse mode of the Conversion page has been fixed.
• The bar showing the percentage breakdown of channels on the Channels page should now display correctly.
• An issue affecting Google Search Console (GSC) exports has been resolved, and exports should now work as expected.

Parse.ly users can now access the Parse.ly Support AI Agent, available within the docs.parse.ly public website.

The Parse.ly Support AI Agent is trained on the public Parse.ly documentation pages as well as a few other helpful resources. It’s designed to quickly surface relevant guidance, so you can find answers to your issues without having to search or wait for a reply.

Assists with answering questions: The Parse.ly AI Agent will answer your questions where a clear, documented solution already exists in Parse.ly docs, including, for example:

• How do I add or configure the Parse.ly tracking code on my site?
• How can I measure the performance of my content or authors in Parse.ly?
• How do I create dashboards and reports in Parse.ly?

Opens tickets for you: If you aren’t able to find the right answer in a conversation with the bot or need additional help, you can convert that bot conversation into a support ticket at any time. Simply type or click “Contact Support” and add your details within the form.

Giving Feedback
The Parse.ly Agent is part of our broader investment in making support faster and more accessible to our customers.

Feedback is important. If you have feedback based on your experience, please click the small star ☆ at the top of the Parse.ly Support AI Agent to encourage feedback.

We’ll continue to tune and improve the AI Agent based on your feedback.

Parse.ly’s AI Assist Is Now Parse.ly Sage

We’ve renamed our AI-powered assistant to Parse.ly Sage! Along with the new name, we’ve made several improvements to make the feature even more helpful.

Parse.ly Sage now offers:

• Better support for queries about conversion labels
• Improved handling of recirculation rate questions
• More accurate year-on-year comparisons
• The ability to contact support directly from the chat interface

Improvements & Bug Fixes:

• Slack and email notifications for headline test and optimization completions have been updated to make it easier to understand the results and take action quickly.
• The selected timeframe has been re-added to the titles of listings on the Overview page, making it easier to understand the context of the data you’re viewing.