As Australian SMEs navigate the evolving search landscape, understanding where your website traffic originates – specifically, differentiating between AI-powered search and traditional Google results – is becoming crucial for optimising your marketing spend and maximising return on investment. It’s no longer enough to simply see ‘Google’ in your analytics; we need to delve deeper.

The rise of AI search, particularly conversational interfaces, presents a unique challenge. Users interacting with AI aren’t necessarily clicking through to websites in the same way they do with a standard Google search. This impacts key metrics like click-through rates and session duration, and ultimately, conversion pathways.

Here’s how we can start to untangle these traffic sources:

• Referral Data Analysis: Pay close attention to referral traffic. AI search engines often identify as distinct referral sources (e.g., ‘perplexity.com’, ‘you.com’). Monitoring these will give you a direct view of traffic originating from these platforms.
• Keyword Performance Shifts: Analyse your keyword rankings. We’re seeing a trend where keywords performing well in traditional Google search may decline in visibility, while long-tail, conversational queries are gaining traction. This suggests increased AI search traffic for those specific phrases.
• Landing Page Performance: Examine which landing pages are receiving traffic from different sources. AI-driven searches often favour concise, direct answers. Pages designed for detailed information may see less AI-driven traffic than those offering quick summaries.
• Search Query Refinement: Google Search Console provides data on the actual search queries driving traffic. Look for patterns indicative of AI-style questions – longer, more conversational phrases.

It’s important to remember that attribution isn’t perfect. Some AI interactions may still register as ‘organic Google’ traffic. However, by combining these analytical approaches, we can build a clearer picture of your AI search performance. This insight will be vital as AI search continues to mature and potentially reshape search engine market share in 2026 and beyond.

The next step is to implement these tracking methods and begin analysing your data. This will allow you to refine your content strategy, optimise for conversational search, and ensure your marketing efforts are aligned with the changing behaviours of Australian searchers.