Adam Hafez
Key takeaways
- Cedric Huesler reported that ChatGPT links stopped adding the utm_source=chatgpt.com tag and now open with no referrer, so analytics files visits as direct.
- His sample was about 500 pages where ChatGPT drove at least 5 percent of visits, comparing 9 to 13 October with the week before.
- He reported ChatGPT down about 31,000 visits a day and direct up about 26,000 a day on those pages, with search down 7 percent.
- He attributes the change to GPT-6 opening links with window.open and the noopener and noreferrer options, and calls it possibly a bug.
- OpenAI has not confirmed the change, and the sample is four days of sampled data on pages where ChatGPT was already a large share.
Cedric Huesler posted on LinkedIn that ChatGPT did not stop sending visitors but is now sharing them as direct traffic. Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported it on 14 October 2026. We have not reproduced the measurement, and OpenAI has not commented.
What changed?
Per Huesler, GPT-6 opens links with window.open(url, "_blank", "noopener,noreferrer") and drops
the ?utm_source=chatgpt.com tag. With no tag and no referrer, analytics files the visit under
direct. Schwartz says OpenAI had added UTM tags to ChatGPT links in June, and that he is not sure
the removal was intentional.
How large is the shift?
Huesler looked at about 500 pages where ChatGPT drove at least 5 percent of visits, comparing 9 to 13 October with the week before. On those pages ChatGPT fell by about 31,000 visits a day and direct rose by about 26,000 a day. Search fell 7 percent, which he says matches everywhere else. Direct rose on two in three of the pages that lost ChatGPT traffic.
How reliable is that?
Huesler says it is early, with four days of sampled data, and only pages where ChatGPT was a large share can show the signal. His headline also allows that it may be a bug. Treat the figures as one analyst’s sample, not an industry number.
What should you check?
Compare your own direct and ChatGPT referral lines before and after 9 October rather than assuming ChatGPT traffic fell. A direct rise on pages that used to receive ChatGPT visits fits this pattern, but it is not proof. For how ChatGPT chooses what to cite, see our AI search hub and the report on ChatGPT’s most-cited sources. Measurement questions sit under analytics.
The evidence
- Type
- data
- Impact
- medium
- Affects
- ChatGPT referral traffic, UTM tracking, Direct traffic
Sources
- 1.ChatGPT didn't stop sending visitors. It shares them as direct. - Cedric Huesler (LinkedIn)Primary
- 2.OpenAI Drops UTM Parameters From ChatGPT Results (GPT-6) - Search Engine Roundtable, October 14, 2026
Frequently asked questions
Did ChatGPT stop sending traffic to websites?
Not according to Cedric Huesler's sample. He reports the visits still arrive but are counted as direct, because the links no longer carry a UTM tag or a referrer.
Why does ChatGPT traffic now show as direct?
Huesler says GPT-6 opens links with window.open and the noopener and noreferrer options and drops the utm_source=chatgpt.com tag, so analytics has nothing to attribute the visit to.
Has OpenAI confirmed the change?
No confirmation is reported. Search Engine Roundtable said it is not sure the change was intentional, and Huesler's own post says it might be a bug.
How big is the shift?
In Huesler's sample of about 500 pages, ChatGPT fell by about 31,000 visits a day while direct rose by about 26,000. The data covers only four days and is sampled.
About the author
Founder, UpgradIQ FZC LLC
Adam Hafez works on technical SEO and search measurement: how pages get crawled, indexed, ranked and now quoted by answer engines. He founded UpgradIQ, which reads Google Search Console and GA4 to tie ranking movement back to the changes that caused it. He publishes what the data supports and states the limits of it.
- Technical SEO
- Search Console and GA4 measurement
- Answer engine optimization
- Structured data
The briefing
Only what actually changed in search, delivered in full by RSS, Atom or JSON feed.
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