How to track ChatGPT traffic

To track ChatGPT traffic in Google Analytics 4, look at the default AI Assistant channel, or build a custom channel group that matches AI referrers such as chatgpt.com with a regex. Both only count people who click through with a referrer. They miss visits without a referrer and every time ChatGPT reads your page for a user without a click.

Step 1: check the AI Assistant channel in GA4

GA4's default channel group includes an AI Assistant channel for visits from sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot and Grok. It does not include Google's AI Overviews or AI Mode.

1. Open Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
2. Set the primary dimension to Session default channel group.
3. Find the row AI Assistant.
4. Change the dimension to Session source to see each assistant.

The list of AI referrers behind this channel is maintained by Google and is not published on the help page, so you can't see exactly which assistants are included.

Step 2: build your own AI channel with a regex

For a channel you control, create a custom channel group.

1. Go to Admin > Data display > Channel groups and create a new group (copy the default group to keep the other channels).
2. Add a channel named AI assistants.
3. Condition: Source matches regex:

.*(chatgpt\.com|chat\.openai\.com|perplexity\.ai|claude\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com).*

4. Move the channel above Referral, so AI visits are not counted as referrals first.
5. Save and use the group in the Traffic acquisition report.

Standard GA4 properties can have 2 custom channel groups, and they apply to reports retroactively.

Step 3: tag your own links

When you share a link in a custom GPT, an AI tool listing or a newsletter, add UTM tags (for example utm_source=chatgpt.com). Some assistants add utm_source to the links they show.

What GA4 can't show you

1. Visits without a referrer

Some assistants, apps and copy-pasted links send no referrer. Without a referrer or UTM tag, the visit lands in Direct. No analytics tool can recover where it came from.

2. ChatGPT reading your page

When a ChatGPT user asks something that calls for a web page, OpenAI's ChatGPT-User fetches it. Search indexing for ChatGPT is done by OAI-SearchBot, and training crawls by GPTBot. None of these show up in GA4:

• Major AI crawlers don't render JavaScript, so the GA4 tag never runs.
• GA4 excludes known bot traffic automatically, can't be told not to, and doesn't show how much it removed.

That means GA4 shows the people who clicked, but not how often ChatGPT read your page to answer someone. AI reads your site more than people click it.

3. Conversions with full numbers

If your site uses a cookie banner, GA4 sets no cookies for visitors who decline, and part of your conversions are modeled rather than counted.

How Sitenumbers tracks ChatGPT traffic

Sitenumbers measures both sides:

Setup takes two parts: the script for people, and a Cloudflare Worker or nginx log shipper for bots. Details: AI search tracking and AI crawlers.

Honest limits

Sitenumbers can't tell you what the user asked ChatGPT, what ChatGPT answered, or whether your page was cited. It shows what can be measured: reads, clicks and conversions.

Want to see what ChatGPT's bots get from your page? Check your site's AI crawler access