Wow! ChatGPT is Actually Driving Visitors to Our Website
The "SEO Bloodbath" grows in strength as the world moves from "Search Engines" to "Answer Engines"
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ChatGPT is quietly rewriting the rules of website traffic origination.
I have written about the ongoing “SEO Bloodbath“ and the stunning rise of ChatGPT’s usage, now the fifth most visited website globally, with 5.2 billion visits in May and surpassing Twitter, Reddit, and Wikipedia.
At GAI Insights, we are experiencing these changes firsthand. For our upcoming GAI World 2025 conference, we maintain a dedicated website and we just started some web ads. While reviewing the website traffic report, I noticed that ChatGPT referred 13 visitors to the site in the past month (my expectations was zero).
Most people know ChatGPT as a tool that delivers text results to help with writing, coding or research. Increasingly, ChatGPT’s responses now include direct web links. After asking ChatGPT about top AI conferences, some users clicked directly from ChatGPT to our event site—bypassing Google search entirely.
While SEO for traditional search engines is well understood, optimizing for Answer Engines (AEO) or Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) like ChatGPT and Gemini is a rapidly evolving field. There are many theories, but little is definitively known about best practices.
Recommendations for Companies and Executives:
Find how many visitors the “Answer Engines” are currently generating to your company’s website (and track this monthly going forward)
Ensure your marketing team is tracking emerging tactics in AEO/GEO. (Examples: Do not block LLMs from indexing your site, unlock content from PDFs, and add Q&A sections to your homepage.)
Ask ChatGPT questions about how to find your product or service. Instead of using AI as a writing companion, use it like a traditional search engine as your customer would. Does it present direct URLs to your website?
Use tools like Chathub.gg to compare results for the same prompt across multiple AI engines. Examples include “what is the best sustainable baby diaper? name one and explain your reasoning.” Notice that the answers differ by “Answer Engine”; some recommend Bambo Nature Diapers, other Dyper diapers and still others Thirsties.
AI is fundamentally transforming how customers find and engage with your website. Ignoring this shift puts your business at risk.
Let me know what you learn —and consider joining us Sep 29-30 in Boston for GAI World 2025 this fall to learn more on this topic.
We had a great “Learning Lab” this past Monday with a case study on Lovable, an amazing AI prototyping product that is growing rapidly (revenues believe to have grown from $7M to $84M in one year). Watch the recording here.
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“AI will double everyone’s productivity”— Eric Schmidt
Onward,
Paul
.