Understanding where your website traffic originates is crucial for optimising your marketing spend and maximising return on investment. With the increasing influence of AI-powered search, particularly through tools like Perplexity AI and others emerging, it’s becoming more important to differentiate between traffic coming from these sources versus traditional Google search. It’s not enough to just see ‘search traffic’ – we need to know *which* search.

Currently, Google Analytics (and similar platforms) don’t automatically label traffic as ‘AI search’ versus ‘Google search’. However, we can use a combination of techniques to get a clearer picture. Here’s how:

• Referral Data Analysis: AI search engines often act as referral sources. Look closely at your ‘Referrals’ report in Google Analytics. You’ll likely see entries for ‘perplexity.ai’ or similar AI platforms. This immediately identifies traffic originating from those sources.
• Landing Page Focus: AI search results often lead users to very specific sections of a webpage, answering a precise query. Analyse which landing pages receive a disproportionately high amount of search traffic. If a page targeting a niche keyword suddenly sees a spike, it could indicate AI-driven traffic.
• Search Console Insights: While Google Search Console won’t directly identify AI traffic, it *will* show you queries that are triggering your site’s appearance in Google search results. Comparing these queries to the types of questions AI search engines are known to answer can provide clues.
• User Behaviour Metrics: AI search users often have different behaviour patterns. They may have lower bounce rates (staying on your site longer) and view fewer pages, as their query was answered quickly. Monitor these metrics for anomalies.

It’s important to remember this is an evolving landscape. As AI search matures, we anticipate Google will likely introduce more granular reporting options, potentially in 2026 or 2027. For now, a proactive approach combining these analytical techniques will give you a solid understanding of your AI search traffic.

The key outcome here is to understand the value of traffic from each source. Is AI search traffic converting at a higher or lower rate than Google search? This insight will inform where we focus our content optimisation and broader marketing efforts to achieve the best possible return.