Dark Social is a term used by marketers and SEO specialists for ‘invisible’ shares of content that are difficult to track accurately. Dark Social or Dark Traffic shares don’t have their specific referral source known as private channels distribute them. These channels can be instant messaging apps (Facebook messenger, Whatsapp), emails, normal or video calls, or more.
As a result of such shares, the website links miss out on having a specific code at the end of their URL.

Thus, they become a dark social link whose source marketers cannot track. These links show as ‘direct’ to the website rackers.

Example

You’ve fallen for ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles and decided to share it with your friends. So you copy the song link and share it on Whatsapp with ten of your contacts. Tadaa! You just created ten dark social links!