ChatGPT-attributed traffic fell sharply in several analytics datasets this month, and analysts tie the drop to ChatGPT links that open without tracking tags.

The number of ChatGPT-attributed sessions in Google Analytics 4 fell by 22% to 57%, for sites tracked by Graphite with meaningful traffic in the AI Assistant channel, starting Oct. 9, stated Graphite CEO Ethan Smith in his LinkedIn post. Smith estimates this represents an approximate 45% fall from the previous baseline. LLM Pulse reported that, relative to the same days in the last two weeks, sessions from ChatGPT on the sites LLM Pulse has been monitoring were approximately 46% less during Oct. 9–11. Total traffic on those sites remained relatively constant over the same period.

Smith says that ChatGPT started opening links in the answer text without the utm_source=chatgpt.com tag or a referrer, therefore visits from these links can appear as Direct in GA4. There are other analyses suggesting the same change in tracking. However, there is not enough data yet to determine whether there was also some loss of visitation.

Cedric Huesler, a senior director of product management at Adobe, compared Oct. 9–13 with the week before on about 500 pages where ChatGPT drove at least 5% of visits. He reported on LinkedIn that ChatGPT visits to those pages fell by about 31,000 a day while Direct visits rose by about 26,000 a day. Search traffic fell 7%, in line with search elsewhere.

Direct rose on two of every three pages that lost ChatGPT traffic, compared with about half the week before.

Source link