ChatGPT has rolled out web browsing functionality and Google is starting to slowly pilot Generative Search Experience in search results (i.e., Bard now in your Google search results). This means more bot visits taking the place of human visits for some sites. Not across the board and there will be winners/losers, but if they don’t mention you in the AI results—you are losing traffic, customers, and running an ineffective SEO growth strategy. There is a lot of speculation around what form this will take, when it will happen (or accelerate), and what the winning SEO formula is to be a winner rather than a loser.

Currently most growth teams EXCLUDE bot traffic from their analytics because it skews performance data. Even Google Analytics defaults to automatically remove bot traffic. My hypothesis is that it will be important to monitor with granularity to stay ahead of the Generative AI vs SEO chess match.

This is an example where ChatGPT bot traffic would replace organic traffic. Before ChatGPT, a human would have conducted the Bing search for “best bagel places in Chelsea Manhattan” and then manually clicked through to sites like Foursquare or TimeOut.

Yousuf Bhaijee

Here is a starting point to set up bot tracking so you can determine how ChatGPT and Google AI may be impacting your site’s traffic.

may start eating your content and traffic without you knowing

. You can avoid being blindsided and adapt if it happens by 

This is an example where ChatGPT bot traffic would replace organic traffic

Here is a starting point to set up tracking:

Parse “user agent string” in your website log data. You probably can’t do this in Google Analytics but you can with SQL or a BI tool. Track by ChatGPT, Bing, and Google bot visits per day by page. If bot traffic starts to go up for certain pages, figure out what searches are associated (Google Search Console) and then see if you are showing up in the AI Generative Results. If not, start experimenting. Knowledge is power.

Sample Query for Tracking Bot Traffic by Yousuf Bhaijee

Example ChatGPT Query

How to Track Bots

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