ChatGPT growing as a traffic referrer, reshaping search behavior: Report

ChatGPT's search and drainage effect is significant, especially beneficial to education, technology and software development websites. Based on the analysis of 80 million global clickstream data in the second half of 2024, Semrush shows that as of November, ChatGPT has brought more traffic to more than 30,000 independent domain names.

Changes in search behavior: About 54% of ChatGPT's queries do not enable the search function, and the remaining 46% use search.

• The average ChatGPT prompt word length is 23 words, with a maximum of 2712 words.
• The average ChatGPT search term length is much shorter, with only 4.2 words and a maximum of 301 words.

Search intent changes: Traditional search keywords have clear intent (navigation, information, business and transactions, etc.), but analysis found that only 30% of ChatGPT prompt words belong to these categories. This means that 70% of prompt words are rarely or never seen in traditional search engines (such as Google, Bing).

Comparison between ChatGPT and Google and Bing: Compared with Google, ChatGPT brings more recommended traffic to the following types of websites:

• Domain names, technology and artificial intelligence platforms related to OpenAI.

Compared to Bing, ChatGPT brings more recommended traffic to the following types of websites:

• Academic publishers and research institutions, as well as educational and technical resources.

Comparison between ChatGPT and Google users: In December, Google had 6.5 billion independent visitors worldwide, while ChatGPT had 566 million. Semrush also compared user demographics and found:

• ChatGPT users are younger and have a higher proportion of men.
• ChatGPT is more popular among the student community; Google is more popular among the full-time staff, housewives and retirees community.

Semrush's interpretation: Report author Brenna Kelly said:

• “For marketers and content creators, these data reveal an emerging reality: Success in this new environment requires moving from traditional SEO metrics to content that actively supports learning, problem-solving and creative tasks.”

Important significance: SEO continues to develop rapidly, and the ways people search and find answers are constantly changing. It will become increasingly important to ensure that your brand content can be understood and cited by large language models (LLMs).

In-depth discussion: What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

Research Report: Investigating ChatGPT Search: Insights from 80 Million Clickstream Records

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