Title: First-party tracking restores referrer data affected by iOS 26
Author: joshhanson
Published: August 7, 2026

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#  First-party tracking restores referrer data affected by iOS 26

Last December, we shared that [Apple’s iOS 26 update increases direct traffic](https://docs.parse.ly/ios-26-update-increases-direct-traffic/)
by limiting the referrer information Safari passes to analytics tools. Since then,
our engineering team has developed and validated a solution: first-party tracking,
which serves the Parse.ly tracker from a subdomain you own. Sites running it have
seen referrer attribution recover substantially, with traffic from social platforms,
search engines, aggregators, and other referral sources once again correctly categorized
instead of appearing as Direct.

First-party tracking is available now to all customers through a Support-guided 
setup.

## What’s happening

Safari on iOS 26 (and macOS Tahoe) withholds referrer data in many cases when analytics
scripts load from a third-party domain. Because the standard Parse.ly tracker loads
from our CDN, an increasing share of iOS traffic arrives without a referrer and 
is categorized as Direct. 

With first-party tracking, the tracker and data collection endpoints run on a subdomain
of your own site (for example, fpa-cdn.yourdomain.com). Safari treats these requests
as first-party, so referrer data is preserved and your attribution reflects where
readers actually came from.

## What you’ll see

After setup, expect your share of Direct traffic to return to pre-iOS 26 levels,
with those sessions reattributed to their true sources: social platforms, search
engines, aggregators, and other referrers. The improvement applies from the time
your site switches over. Historical data is not restated.

## How to get set up

Setup requires a few DNS changes on your side and coordination with our team. You
can preview the full process in our [first-party analytics documentation](https://docs.parse.ly/first-party-analytics-fpa/).
Here’s how it works:

1. **Contact us.** Open a ticket with [Parse.ly Support ](https://support.parse.ly/hc/en-us)
and request first-party tracking. Include the domain for each site you track with
Parse.ly. The DNS records in the next step are unique to your domain, and this step
is what generates them.

2. **Add DNS records**. We’ll send you a set of CNAME records to create for each
domain. These route tracking through your own subdomains and let us issue a security
certificate for them. 

3. **We verify and activate**. Once the records are in place, we handle validation
and set up your first-party configuration.

4. **Update your tracking code**. We’ll provide a small change to how the Parse.
ly tracker loads on your site. For Parse.ly WordPress plugin users, this is especially
simple, and we’ll share the exact change to apply to your setup.

5. **Confirm the data**. We’ll verify events are flowing, and referrer attribution
is recovering. You can watch the shift yourself in the Referrers report in your 
dashboard.

If you manage multiple sites or API keys, let us know up front, and we’ll plan the
rollout with you.

Last updated: August 07, 2026