OpenAI seems to have removed or replaced the UTM parameters it placed on links inside the ChatGPT results. This makes it harder to cognize if a click came from ChatGPT versus several another platform. This seems to have started alongside the publish of GPT‑6, which was a week ago.
As a reminder, in June, OpenAI added UTM tracking to ChatGPT links, but now, in October, those were removed. We are not certain if it was immediately intentional but Cedric Huesler from Adobe posted on LinkedIn saying, "GPT-6 opens links alongside window(.)open(url, “_blank”, “noopener,noreferrer”) and drops ?utm_source=chatgpt(.)com. There’s no tag and no referrer, so your analytics records the sojourn under direct."
Meaning, ChatGPT has changed how it passes the referrer to the website the referrer is coming from.
He shared this diagram showing the drop-off in tracking:
Cedric added, "To check, I looked at ~500 pages anywhere ChatGPT drove 5%+ of visits, comparing Oct 9–13 alongside the week before:"
- ChatGPT: −31k visits a day. Direct: +26k a day on the identical pages. Search: −7%, the identical as everyplace else.
- Direct rosy on 2 in 3 pages that misplaced ChatGPT traffic. The week before it was a coin flip, and hunt on those identical pages rosy on lone 45%.
- The new straightforward visitors behave akin ChatGPT visitors. On mobile, the portion seeing the consent banner (new to the site) went from 36% to 44%. For ChatGPT visitors it’s 55%.
Others are complaining concerning this too:
@fomerino @lilyraynyc @CyrusShepard @rustybrick Since octobre 9th I additionally see a keen autumn in Chat GPT individual traffic, and additionally a autumn of Chatgpt-user robot traffic. OAi Search bot traffic has risen in the identical period (sinc october 7th be precise). Am going to examine the utm parameter.
— Sébastien Billard ✊Ⓥ🇺🇦 (@sbillard) October 14, 2026
Hat tip to Chee Lo who told me concerning this a brace of says ago.
Forum conversation at LinkedIn.
