Chapter 5 of 5 · AI and SEO — Using AI Well, and Understanding AI Search

Measuring AI search, and the risks to watch

Which Search Console report shows visitors from AI Overviews, how to see visitors from ChatGPT in Google Analytics, and a list of the risks of using AI for SEO, from scaled content abuse to blocking the wrong bot.

This final chapter has two parts: measuring how many people AI search sends to your site, and every risk from this series in one place.

5.1 Where Google’s AI traffic shows in Search Console

Google says visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in the Performance report under the “Web” search type, like ordinary results.

What to know when reading the numbers:

An AI Overview counts as a single position, and every link in it gets that position. If a page’s average position shifts after an AI Overview appears for a query, it may be how it is counted, not a real rise or fall.
Since 31 August 2026 there is a separate Generative AI performance report built from the “Web” data. Its help page describes impressions; we found no description of clicks there. Google also says the report is rolling out over time, so not every site has it yet, and sites with few impressions from AI features may not see it.
If the site is set to “exclude” from AI features (chapter 4), impressions and visits from them will be zero.

5.2 Visitors from ChatGPT and other AI assistants

These show up in your site’s analytics, not in Search Console:

Source	How to see it
ChatGPT	OpenAI says ChatGPT adds `utm_source=chatgpt.com` to referral links automatically
AI assistants generally	Google Analytics 4 has a default channel called AI Assistant for visitors from assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot
AI Overviews and AI Mode	GA4 counts them as Organic Search, not AI Assistant

We found no official Perplexity documentation on how it tags referral links, and the GA4 page names assistants only as examples, so the AI Assistant channel may not cover every assistant.

5.3 Risks to watch

Risk	Where it comes from	How to avoid it
Many AI pages that add no value	Scaled content abuse policy (chapter 1)	Ask whether each page helps a reader; if not, noindex or remove it
A separate page for every variation of a query, primarily to manipulate rankings	Google’s AI optimization guide (2026) calls it scaled content abuse	One page that fully answers one subject
Trying to manipulate Google’s AI answers	Google made this explicit in its spam policies in May 2026	Write for readers, not for an AI to quote
Wrong information the AI made up	Google says trust is the most important part of E-E-A-T	Check against primary sources; have a non-writer review (chapters 2–3)
An AI disclosure that is not true	Google recommends saying plainly how content was made	Write only what you actually do
Blocking the wrong bot	Each bot has a different job (chapter 4)	Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps you out of ChatGPT search answers (you may still appear as a link); blocking GPTBot does not affect search
Believing robots.txt keeps people out	RFC 9309 says it is not access authorization	Use a login for private content
Paying for llms.txt or special markup for AI Overviews	Google says it does not use them	Ask for official documentation before paying

5.4 A lesson from KoishiAI: change one thing, note the date, and wait

While writing this series we added the last-modified date (lastmod) to our sitemap for the first time, after finding that Googlebot almost never looked for our new pages. We noted the date of the change and will look at Search Console’s crawl stats over several weeks, not the next day.

The same rule applies to everything in this series. Change your Search Console AI setting, edit robots.txt and publish new AI-written pages in the same week, and you will never know which one moved the numbers.

5.5 The whole series as a checklist

Chapter	Check
1	Pages written with AI help add value, carry a real responsible author, and have a truthful disclosure
2	Every number, quote and rule checked against its source; title words come from real queries
3	Written from a fact table, with number and date checks, and reviewed by someone who did not write it
4	You know your Search Console AI setting, robots.txt matches your intent for every bot, and you pay for nothing Google does not use
5	You know where AI visitors show up, and you change one thing at a time with the date noted

AI crawler checker — check which bots your robots.txt lets in
Sitemap.xml checker — check lastmod and URLs in your sitemap