Social Signals
One in five ChatGPT clicks go to Google: Study
Apr
Over 30% of outbound clicks go to only 10 domains, with Google alone taking greater than 20%, in accordance with a brand new Semrush examine revealed at this time.
ChatGPT additionally depends much less on the dwell net, triggering search on 34.5% of queries, down from 46% in late 2024.
The large image. ChatGPT’s development has plateaued, and its position in how customers navigate the net is evolving erratically.
- Referral visitors from ChatGPT grew 206%, evaluating January 2025 to January 2026.
The small print. Most ChatGPT referral visitors nonetheless goes to a small set of web sites, at the same time as extra websites obtain some visitors.
- Google accounts for 21.6% of all ChatGPT referral visitors.
- The following 9 domains deliver the highest 10 to only over 30% of referrals.
- Most different websites get a protracted tail of minimal visitors.
- The variety of domains receiving referrals expanded, peaking at round 260,000 in 2025 earlier than settling close to 170,000.
Why we care. Visibility in ChatGPT doesn’t translate evenly into visitors, and also you’ll doubtless see marginal referral influence. The decline in search-triggered queries additionally limits your probabilities to earn citations and visitors.
When ChatGPT searches. It defaults to pre-trained data and makes use of net search in particular circumstances, together with:
- Person requests for sources.
- Questions on latest occasions.
- Conditions the place the mannequin lacks confidence.
Habits shift. Most ChatGPT prompts nonetheless don’t resemble conventional search queries.
- Between 65% and 85% of prompts don’t match normal key phrases, reflecting extra complicated, conversational inputs.
- In the meantime, engagement is deepening. Queries per session jumped 50% in late 2025.
In regards to the knowledge. Semrush analyzed greater than 1 billion strains of U.S. clickstream knowledge from October 2024 to February 2026 throughout a 200 million-user panel, monitoring prompts, referral locations, and search utilization.
The examine. ChatGPT traffic analysis: Insights from 17 months of clickstream data
Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush. We stay dedicated to offering high-quality protection of promoting subjects. Until in any other case famous, this web page’s content material was written by both an worker or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.
#ChatGPT #clicks #Google #Research
