Twitter drives four times as much traffic as you think it does, say awe.sm co-founder Jonathan Strauss and his investor Mark Suster in a minor media assault today.

That’s because traditional analytics tools don’t always give an accurate understanding of social media traffic. For instance, when users click on links from desktop and mobile clients rather than browsers, many analytics tools label this as “direct traffic,” which is supposed to mean people who went to your URL independently of clicking on a link to it somewhere else. Strauss describes this measurement technique as “arcane.”

And more broadly, unlike other referrers such as the Web sites for Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon, Twitter doesn’t rewrite or tag its outgoing links or frame linked Web pages to maintain attribution and/or a consistent experience and/or prevent phishing. (Though Twitter has started doing some of this with its t.co URL shortener.)

via Awe.sm Guys Say: Don’t Believe Your Referrer Logs – Liz Gannes – Social – AllThingsD.