OpenAI Drops UTM Parameters From ChatGPT Results (GPT-6)
OpenAI has removed the UTM parameters it attached to links inside ChatGPT results, apparently as part of the GPT-6 release a week ago. The tags were added in June, so the change reverses a four-month-old tracking setup.
Cedric Huesler of Adobe flagged the shift on LinkedIn, noting that GPT-6 opens links with window.open and no longer appends ?utm_source=chatgpt.com. With no tag and no referrer, analytics tools file the visit under direct traffic.
Huesler compared roughly 500 pages where ChatGPT drove at least 5% of visits, looking at 9 to 13 October against the prior week. ChatGPT visits fell by about 31,000 a day while direct visits rose by 26,000 a day on the same pages, and direct traffic climbed on two of every three pages that lost ChatGPT traffic.
For brands tracking whether AI assistants send them visitors, the change means ChatGPT referrals now look identical to typed-in or untagged traffic. That makes it harder to attribute citations and recommendations in ChatGPT to actual sessions on site.
Reported by Search Engine Roundtable ↗
Topics: ChatGPT, Measurement, Citations