Count visits that come from AI assistants

How to do it

People who click a link in an AI answer arrive with a referrer such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com or copilot.microsoft.com. Some links carry a utm_source that names the assistant instead. Keep the list of hosts in one file and add new assistants as they appear. Many visits lose their referrer, so read the count as a lower bound. Count without tracking people, as Count visits without tracking people says. Put the numbers beside impressions, as Measure impressions in AI answers says.

Examples

JavaScript example

const AI_ASSISTANT_HOSTS = ['chatgpt.com', 'perplexity.ai', 'gemini.google.com', 'copilot.microsoft.com'];

export function trafficSource({ referrer, utmSource }) {
  const host = referrer ? new URL(referrer).hostname.replace(/^www\./, '') : '';
  if (AI_ASSISTANT_HOSTS.includes(host) || AI_ASSISTANT_HOSTS.includes(utmSource)) return 'ai-assistant';
  return host.startsWith('google.') || host === 'bing.com' ? 'search' : 'other';
}

Python example

from urllib.parse import urlparse

AI_ASSISTANT_HOSTS = {"chatgpt.com", "perplexity.ai", "gemini.google.com", "copilot.microsoft.com"}

def traffic_source(referrer: str, utm_source: str = "") -> str:
    host = (urlparse(referrer).hostname or "").removeprefix("www.")
    if host in AI_ASSISTANT_HOSTS or utm_source in AI_ASSISTANT_HOSTS:
        return "ai-assistant"
    return "search" if host.startswith("google.") or host == "bing.com" else "other"

How to check

A unit test classifies sample visits with each listed referrer host as AI assistant traffic, and a visit from www.google.com as search. The monthly export has an AI assistant column for every landing page.

Sources

• RFC 9110 (Referer)

Related rules

• ANA-7 Track only after consent in Product analytics and experiments
• SEO-73 Measure impressions in AI answers in SEO