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A new study by Predictable reveals significant changes in search behavior, with AI language models (LLM) gaining traction as sources of referral traffic.
The analysis more than 30 websites show that Perplexity and ChatGPT are emerging as alternatives to traditional search engines.
David Bell, co-founder of Predictable, believes this indicates that Google’s growth is stalling:
“Google is basically on the cusp and has started to lose its dominance in search. The reason is that people are starting to use ChatGPT, Claude, Co-pilot, Bing, all these different experiences to better address their search intent.”
Here are some key points from the study. Although it does not provide a complete picture, it offers the best information available at this time.
Key findings
Referral traffic
The study found that Perplexity and ChatGPT managed approx 37% LLM referral traffic, while CoPilot and Gemini follow with 12-14% each.
Notably, the financial sector dominates LLM-led traffic, taking into account 84% of all analyzed referrals.
In the video passage studies, Bell explains:
“Finance in particular is seeing a huge increase in traffic from language models. This could be because Perplexity and other language models have integrations or relationships with different platforms that allow more direct access to users.”
Content distribution
The study reveals that blog posts receive 77.35% turnover of LLM recommendations, followed by:
- Visit home page (9.04%)
- News content (8.23%)
- Guides (2.35%)
“Informational content still matters in the age of AI search,” Bell noted. However, he advises focusing on conversion rate optimization (CRO) and the user journey, since product pages don’t feature prominently in language models.
According to the study, product pages get less than 0.5% LLM referral traffic, which indicates challenges for e-commerce strategies.
A look ahead
LLM referral traffic currently represents 0.25% of total traffic for the most affected sectors, although the study notes significant growth rates.
In the last 90 days of the study, Predictable found:
- 900% growth of ChatGPT referrals for the event industry
- 400%+ growth of ChatGPT traffic for the e-commerce and finance sectors
- Consistent growth across all models except CoPilot
Bell explains what this could mean for websites:
“If you extrapolate, if you average all of these, let’s say roughly 200% growth in organic or AI traffic every 90 days over the next 12 months, that can be up to 20% of total website traffic.”
🚨 Free Tool Alert 🚨
Predictable was created by the free Looker Studio dashboard to help companies track traffic to language learning model (LLM) websites such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Co-pilot, Gemini and Claude.
You can select your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) account and date range to view the data.
The dashboard displays:
- Organic sessions: Total number of organic sessions during the selected time.
- Total LLM sessions: Number of sessions from LLM, with percentages broken down.
- LLM turnover over time: Line graph showing LLM traffic trends, with separate lines for each LLM.
- LLM traffic by landing page: Chart of LLM’s most popular landing pages with traffic, including sessions, percentages, average time on page, and site average comparison.
How does this help
By analyzing this data you can:
- Evaluate the impact of LLM on your traffic compared to organic traffic.
- Identify which LLMs are driving the most traffic and tailor your content.
- Track LLM traffic growth over time and adjust your strategies.
- Discover popular landing pages among LLM users and optimize them for engagement.
- Compare the time LLM users spend on each page with the page average to identify areas for improvement.
In summary
Here are three key takeaways from the study:
- Financial websites see the strongest LLM referral activity, with blog content driving the most traffic
- Product pages rarely appear in LLM results, indicating the need for tailored e-commerce strategies
- Growth rates are significant, potentially reaching 20% of total turnover within a year if current trends continue
When observing these trends, it is important to maintain a balanced approach to driving traffic and optimizing your strategies.
Don’t pursue AI traffic if it could hurt your sales.
Artificial intelligence language models are becoming new sources of website traffic. However, they currently only account for around 0.25% of total turnover in the most affected sectors.
It will be interesting to see how that number changes by next year.
Featured Image: Koshiro K/Shutterstock