# Referrers, Direct Traffic and AI Assistants

AI assistants often send visitors without a usable referrer, so analytics tools file them under "direct" or lump them into other buckets. Ahrefs reports that AI traffic is underrepresented because it is reported as "direct" in analytics tools. whoisbrowsing labels each live visitor's source when the browser tells us: Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, another site's link, or direct.

## What a referrer is

When you click a link, your browser can tell the destination page which page you came from. That hint is the referrer. Analytics tools use it to say "this visit came from Google" or "from a link on example.com". When there is no referrer, the visit is called direct, which really means "source unknown".

Direct is therefore a mix of:

- people who typed your address or used a bookmark;
- links in email apps and messaging apps that strip the referrer;
- links from documents and some mobile apps;
- visits where the browser or a privacy setting removed the referrer;
- some AI assistant clicks.

## Why AI visits go missing

An AI assistant answers in its own interface. When it links to you, the click may or may not carry a referrer, depending on the app, the browser and how the link opens. Ahrefs' [AI traffic research](https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-traffic-research/) states that AI traffic is underrepresented because analytics tools report it as "direct". The same research notes that AI-referred visits are a small share of traffic overall.

We do not claim exact figures beyond what that source says. For your own site, the only reliable measure is your own data, and the live view is a quick way to look at a few visits.

## How we label the source

The label is worked out in the visitor's browser from the referrer and, when the landing address has one, a `utm_source` tag. A tag wins over the referrer. When the domain is one we recognise, we use its name:

| Label | When you will see it |
|---|---|
| Google, Bing | A search result click |
| ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude | The visit's referrer identifies that assistant |
| Another site's name | A referrer from any other website, shown by its domain |
| A `utm_source` value, such as `newsletter` | The link carried that tag |
| Direct | Neither a referrer nor a tag was available |

Tags matter for AI visits. [OpenAI's publisher FAQ](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/12627856-publishers-and-developers-faq) says ChatGPT adds `utm_source=chatgpt.com` to referral URLs from ChatGPT search, and a tag naming `chatgpt.com` is labelled ChatGPT even when the referrer is missing. Only the label leaves the browser; the query string itself never does.

This is a label for each live visitor, not a report: you see ChatGPT as the source on that visitor's line in the side panel, while they are still on your page. Nothing about your visitors is stored on our servers, so there is no history of sources.

## What the label cannot tell you

- **A "direct" visit may still be from an assistant.** If the assistant's click arrived with no referrer and no `utm_source` tag, we have no information to label it and it shows as direct. We do not guess.
- **A label is not an identity.** It says which kind of place the visit came from. It does not say who the person is. The owner also sees an approximate city ([how that works](/learn/approximate-city-from-ip)), never an identity.
- **Assistants change.** Apps update how they open links, so a label that worked last month may not tomorrow. Treat a rising share of "direct" with curiosity.

## Using it

1. Ask an assistant a question that leads to your site, and click its link in a Chrome Incognito or Safari private window, so you are counted as a visitor while you watch.
2. Notice whether your click was labelled with the assistant or fell to direct. That tells you how that app behaves.
3. During a launch or after publishing, watch the side panel for assistant labels. See [launch day](/learn/launch-day-live-visitors) and [track ChatGPT visitors live](/learn/track-chatgpt-visitors-live).

Your visitors' browsers send the page, pointer position, clicks, scroll, device type, source, browser and operating system, and time on site. Never keystrokes, form values or page text. Visitors from the EU/EEA, UK and Switzerland, and browsers with Global Privacy Control, are never shown, so their sources never appear either.

## When whoisbrowsing is NOT the right tool

To measure AI referrals over weeks, build segments and see trends, use an analytics product that stores data and lets you define channels. A live label shows the present only.

## Next steps

Read [How it works](/how-it-works), the [privacy page](/privacy), or [try it without an account](/try). It is free, with no credit card.