Since GPT-6, visits from ChatGPT show up as direct traffic in GA4
Partner · Strategy, advertising and measurement
Since the launch of GPT-6 on October 7 and 8, 2026, links clicked in ChatGPT reach your site without the utm_source parameter and without a referrer. Google Analytics 4 therefore files these visits under direct traffic. OpenAI has not confirmed whether the change is intentional. If traffic from ChatGPT has dropped in your reports since October 9 while direct traffic went up, you are most likely looking at a measurement problem, not a loss of visibility.
What changed
Since June 2025, ChatGPT added a utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter to the links in its answers: first to cited sources, then to the links in the "More" section. GA4 could therefore attribute these visits to ChatGPT even when the referrer (the page the click came from) was not passed along.
Cedric Huesler, of Adobe, found the cause on October 13. GPT-6 now opens links with a browser function (window.open with the "noopener" and "noreferrer" options) that passes neither the parameter nor the referrer. He compared October 9 to 13 with the previous week on about 500 pages where ChatGPT brought at least 5% of visits.
Before GPT-6
The link carries the utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter. GA4 attributes the visit to ChatGPT, even without a referrer.
Since GPT-6
The link opens without a parameter or a referrer. GA4 has nothing to read and files the visit under direct traffic.
Direct traffic rose on two out of three pages that lost ChatGPT traffic (261 pages out of 387). The week before, it was one page out of two. On mobile, the share of direct visitors who saw the consent banner (new visitors, in other words) rose from 36% to 44% on these pages, against 55% among visitors coming from ChatGPT: the new "direct" visitors look like ChatGPT visitors. Huesler states the limits of his measurement himself: four days of data, a sample, and pages where ChatGPT already carried a lot of weight.
Two details come from the infographic Adobe published with the analysis. Before GPT-6, the referrer already reached only about 12% of clicks: the parameter did almost all the attribution work. And Adobe places the GPT-6 rollout between October 8 and 10, where other observers date it to October 7 and 8. Across thousands of sites tracked by Adobe, visits attributed to ChatGPT lost two thirds in a week.
Barry Schwartz (Search Engine Roundtable) relayed the analysis on the morning of October 14. SEO specialist Sébastien Billard observed, on his side, a sharp drop in human traffic from ChatGPT since October 9. OpenAI has made no announcement. Schwartz himself writes that he does not know whether the change is intended.
Who is affected
Every company that tracks visits from AI assistants in GA4 or in another analytics tool: custom channel groups, segments, Looker Studio dashboards. Online stores and B2B companies that received a visible share of their visits from ChatGPT will notice it first.
Conversions follow the same path. A sale or a quote request that starts with a click in ChatGPT is now credited to direct traffic in your reports.
The change comes from how ChatGPT works and does not depend on the country: it affects visits from users in Quebec, whether the conversation is in French or in English. In Quebec, Law 25 already requires consent before analytics cookies are set. Part of the visits from ChatGPT was therefore already missing from your reports. Without a parameter or a referrer, the visible share shrinks further.
What we recommend
- Add an annotation on October 7, 2026 in your reports and dashboards. It will keep the drop from being read as a loss of visibility three months from now.
- Compare direct traffic to your deep pages (articles, product pages, service pages) before and after that date. Few people type these addresses from memory: a rise in direct traffic on these pages often points to visits from an AI assistant.
- Track your presence in ChatGPT with a citation-tracking tool rather than with referral traffic alone. We compare these tools in our analysis of AI visibility tools.
- Add the question "How did you hear about our company?" to your forms, with ChatGPT among the choices. We did it on our own forms.
- Keep your current settings. If OpenAI restores the parameter, your reports will pick it up again without any change.
Reading what ChatGPT says about you when traffic no longer shows it is part of what our AI visibility and GEO service covers.
A drop in ChatGPT traffic in your reports since October 9, 2026 does not mean a drop in visibility. OpenAI has not confirmed the change and could correct it: we will update this note.
What these visits are worth once measured is covered in does AI traffic convert better. The limits of consent-based measurement are explained in consent and measurement: the limits of Google Consent Mode. To understand where ChatGPT gets its links, see what search engine does ChatGPT use.
- Search Engine Roundtable, OpenAI Drops UTM Parameters From ChatGPT Results (GPT-6), October 14, 2026. Source for the relay of the analysis, the absence of confirmation from OpenAI and the link with the GPT-6 release.
- Cedric Huesler (Adobe), LinkedIn post, October 13, 2026. Source for the technical cause, the October 9 to 13 figures and the limits of the measurement.
- Dalin de Graff, ChatGPT UTM Tags Disappeared With GPT-6, October 14, 2026. Source for the GPT-6 rollout dates (October 7 for paid plans, October 8 for free plans).
- Sébastien Billard, post on X, October 14, 2026. Drop in human traffic from ChatGPT since October 9.
- PPC Land, ChatGPT adds UTM parameters to more links for better analytics tracking, June 16, 2025. Source for the parameter being added to the links in the "More" section.
- Search Engine Roundtable, OpenAI's ChatGPT Updates To Improve Tracking In Analytics, June 16, 2025. Source for the start of link tagging in June 2025.
- Adobe Brand Visibility, infographic "Where did ChatGPT's visitors go?" published with Cedric Huesler's analysis and relayed by Search Engine Roundtable, October 14, 2026. Source for the indexed curve, the 261 pages out of 387, the 12% share and the October 8 to 10 rollout window.
Gabriel almost always takes your first call and carries out your audit. He builds the strategy starting from your growth goal: where to put your budget, which market to test and how to connect each lead to a real sale in your CRM. He mainly leads engagements for three goals: Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns, Develop a new market, and Generate demand and growth. With Geneviève, he also works on organic search (SEO), AI visibility (GEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO). The sales a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign brings in depend on the page that receives the click. He writes mainly about marketing strategy, paid advertising and measurement.
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