Peham: ChatGPT referral Traffic increased by 1.6x

Key Takeaways:

• Peham reported an increase of referral traffic from ChatGPT - similar to the one I saw:

  Beginning of May, ChatGPT started adding hyperlinks to brand names in the ai responses [vs. before when] ChatGPT would just display your name/brand/product as a text.

• Blyskal pointed out:

  • OpenAI referral traffic to monitored brand sites increased by ~1.6x overnight (and held there)

  • Share of logged-out ChatGPT answers containing a clickable brand URL increased by 5x: ~4-5% to ~22%

  • Homepage share of all OpenAI referrals increased 7x: 3.5% → 24.2%

  • Hitting logged-out users the hardest

• Hypothesis on the Why mentioned:

  • Introduction of utm-parameters to links in answers inside the app (vs. the web / browser where they have been placed before)

  • ChatGPT changing default model to gpt-5.5 that changed the way it searches the web: Query fanout is more brand focussed

  • Simultaneously introducing Ads implicates that using added hyperlinks to brands to train a CTR model to optimize link and ad placement

  

  

  

  

Sources:

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thomaspeham_chatgpt-share-7465011841124089856-bjB2/

• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7465407565770919936/

• https://x.com/rustybrick/status/2059593205415367080