last non-direct click
Also called: paid and organic last click, last non-direct click attribution
Last non-direct click is an attribution model that ignores direct visits and gives 100% of the conversion credit to the last channel a user clicked before converting. It was Universal Analytics' default and remains a selectable model in GA4, where Google also labels it "paid and organic last click."
The model rests on one assumption: a direct visit usually means the person already knows your brand, so an earlier marketing touch earned it. Instead of crediting “Direct,” the model looks back along the path and hands the full conversion to the last non-direct channel.
How the credit passes back
Say a user finds you through Google organic search, leaves, then returns a week later by typing your URL and converts:
Organic Search → (Direct return) → Conversion
Last non-direct click credits Organic Search, not Direct. Google states one exception plainly: every model excludes direct visits from credit “unless the path to key event consists entirely of direct visits.” If the whole path is direct, Direct gets the credit because there is nothing else to point to.
You will still find this model in GA4, now labeled “paid and organic last click,” though it is no longer the reporting default. In November 2023 Google removed the first-click, linear, time-decay, and position-based models, keeping data-driven and last-click-based options. Last non-direct click survived as a selectable benchmark, handy for comparing against data-driven results and for sanity-checking how much conversion credit organic really holds.
How it affects your traffic
Your attribution model decides how much of your pipeline organic search appears to earn. Under last non-direct click, organic often gets more credit than under a raw last-click view, because it catches the returning visitor who first arrived through search, but it can still undercount early discovery touches, including AI-search referrals that land as direct. An SEO audit checks that your analytics attributes correctly, that direct traffic is not quietly swallowing organic's real contribution, and that channel groupings are clean, so the numbers you use to justify SEO spend actually reflect what organic drove.
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