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Track ChatGPT and AI referral traffic in GA4

Limelit reads your AI referral traffic from GA4 on every account, including the free one, with read-only access that never edits your GA4 property. You can also see that traffic in GA4 alone, and the first section shows how.

Connect GA4

See AI referral traffic in GA4 alone

AI assistants send visitors from these hosts:

  • chatgpt.com
  • perplexity.ai
  • gemini.google.com
  • claude.ai
  • copilot.microsoft.com
  1. In GA4, open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition.
  2. Set the primary dimension to Session source.
  3. Add a filter where Session source matches the regex below. The sessions left in the table are the visits AI assistants referred.
  4. To keep it, create a custom channel group in Admin, under Data display, then Channel groups: add a channel called AI assistants whose Source matches the same regex, and move it above Referral so GA4 checks it first.
chatgpt\.com|perplexity\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|claude\.ai|copilot\.microsoft\.com

What the Limelit integration adds

Limelit reads the same referral traffic for you every night and breaks it down by assistant and landing page. Google shows an unverified-app screen when you connect.

Read-only access
An owner of your Limelit account connects GA4 with Google sign-in, and Limelit asks only for read-only access (the analytics.readonly scope).
90 days on day one
When you pick a GA4 property, Limelit reads the last 90 days of referral traffic, then refreshes the last 7 days every night.
Referral rows only
It reads referral traffic by date, source, medium, landing page and country, and nothing else from your property.
Attributed by assistant
Each referring host is matched to an assistant (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude and others). Referrals it cannot attribute are reported separately, never added in.
Sessions
Visits to your site that an AI assistant referred, in this window.
Engaged sessions
AI-referred sessions that were engaged: they lasted 10s or more, converted, or had multiple pageviews (GA4's definition).

What it does not do

  • Edit your GA4 property, its tags or its settings: the access is read-only.
  • Separate Google AI Overviews clicks: GA4 reports them as ordinary Google search.
  • Separate Bing chat: GA4 reports it as ordinary Bing traffic.
Questions

The things people ask us first.

Yes. Filter Session source for chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, claude.ai and copilot.microsoft.com, or save that filter as a custom channel group.

No. It is on every Limelit account, including the free one.

No. Limelit asks Google for read-only access, so it can read reports but cannot edit your property, tags or settings.

Only an owner of your Limelit account, because it grants access to your company's analytics.

No. GA4 reports AI Overviews clicks as ordinary Google search, so neither GA4 nor Limelit can separate them.

90 days when you first pick a property, then the last 7 days every night.