Ahrefs has launched a public dashboard that compares referral traffic from Google Search and ChatGPT across websites using Ahrefs Web Analytics. The dashboard updates monthly, with July as the latest period reported. Ahrefs CMO Tim Soulo released the dashboard on LinkedIn.
What the dashboard tracks
- Referrer-based traffic from Google Search and ChatGPT.
- Aggregated data from 44,421 sites connected to Ahrefs Web Analytics.
- The initial dataset spans three complete months and keeps the same sites in each month.
- Monthly updates with a visible last updated timestamp.
- Figures reflect visits with a referrer and are limited to this cohort.
July results
- Google accounted for 41.9% of total traffic across the cohort.
- ChatGPT accounted for 0.19% of total traffic.
- Month over month in the latest month: Google +1.4%, ChatGPT +5.3%.
- Prior month: Google +6.8%, ChatGPT +1.6%.
ChatGPT is growing 3.8x faster than Google.
Methodology and limitations
The tracker counts visits that pass a referrer. Some AI assistants and in-app browsers use noreferrer or strip referrers, which can undercount AI-originating visits. Ahrefs has documented these gaps and described the analytics blind spot created by generative engines.
The cohort only includes sites using Ahrefs Web Analytics that appear in all included months, so scope and methodology are limited to that dataset. In earlier Ahrefs research across different samples, AI referrals were around 0.17% of an average site's traffic, which is consistent with the 0.19% reported here for July.
Why it matters
Google remains the dominant referrer for this cohort, while ChatGPT's share is small but growing. Marketers should treat the trend as directional, account for tracking blind spots, and watch how AI assistants evolve as traffic sources over time.
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