Tracking ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude Referrals Properly: GA4 Regex, Server Logs and the 'Dark AI' Problem

Описание и применение

Реализация классификатора, пользовательского канала GA4, серверного middleware и SQL‑отчётов позволяет полностью отслеживать трафик из AI‑ассистентов, включая «тёмный» трафик.

Задача

Accurately attributing traffic from AI assistants is difficult because default analytics miss several traffic shapes.

Результат

All AI traffic shapes are now tracked, enabling accurate attribution and estimation of dark AI traffic.

Рабочий процесс

• Define AI source rules in a shared module (AI_SOURCES).
• Create a classifyAI function that checks referrer host and UTM source.
• Add GA4 custom channel group regex to group AI traffic.
• Implement Express/Next.js middleware to log AI visits server‑side.
• Write SQL queries to report AI traffic and estimate dark AI portion.

Доказательства

A classifier that recognises AI referrals from the referrer and UTM tags

Источник

GA4 custom channel group regex

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Express/Next.js middleware to log AI visits server-side

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SQL to report on them, plus a way to estimate the part you can't see

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