AI Referral Tracking Overview
The AI Referrals dashboard shows how much website traffic comes from AI platforms. When a user clicks a link in a ChatGPT, Perplexity, or other AI response, Surva.ai detects the referral and attributes it to the source platform. This connects your AI visibility data to actual website visits.
Summary Stats
Four cards across the top of the dashboard show:
- AI Referrals (30 days) - total referral visits from all AI platforms, with a percentage change compared to the previous 30-day period
- Unique Visitors - deduplicated visitor count based on server-generated fingerprints (no client-side cookies or identifiers)
- AI Platforms Active - how many distinct AI platforms sent traffic to your site
- Landing Pages - how many unique pages on your site received AI referral traffic
Setting Up Referral Tracking
Add the Surva.ai tracking script to your website to start collecting data:
- Navigate to Site Tracking > Setup (or click Install Script from the AI Referrals page)
- Copy the tracking script generated for your site token
- Add it to all pages in the head or before the closing body tag
The tracking script is a lightweight JavaScript file that detects both AI crawlers (sent to Crawler Logs) and AI referrals (sent to Referral Tracking) in a single request. It uses no cookies, no localStorage, and no client-side identifiers. Referral data is sent via navigator.sendBeacon() with an XMLHttpRequest fallback.
Visitor identification happens server-side using a SHA-256 hash of the IP address, user agent, and a server salt. Sessions are scoped to a single day.
Verifying Your Script
Use the Verify Script button on the dashboard to confirm installation. Enter any URL on your site - Surva.ai fetches the page and checks for the tracking script tag with your correct site token. A Send Test Referral button simulates a Perplexity referral so you can confirm data is flowing.
Detected AI Platforms
Surva.ai automatically identifies referral traffic from 13 AI platforms by matching referrer URLs against stored patterns:
- ChatGPT - chat.openai.com, chatgpt.com
- Perplexity - perplexity.ai
- Claude - claude.ai
- Gemini - gemini.google.com, bard.google.com
- Google AI Overviews - google.com/search with AI-specific parameters
- Microsoft Copilot - copilot.microsoft.com, bing.com/chat
- Meta AI - meta.ai, facebook.com/ai
- DeepSeek - chat.deepseek.com, deepseek.com
- Grok - grok.x.ai, x.com/i/grok
- You.com - you.com
- Phind - phind.com
- Kagi - kagi.com
- Other - catch-all for unrecognized AI referrers
Referrer patterns are stored in the database and support exact match, contains, and regex pattern types with a priority ranking. New platforms can be added as they emerge.
Dashboard Charts and Sections
The main dashboard displays several data views:
- Referral Traffic (Last 30 Days) - a line chart showing daily referral volume over time
- Referrals by AI Platform - a list of platforms with colored badges and visit counts, showing which AI engines drive the most traffic
- Traffic by AI Platform (Stacked) - a stacked bar chart breaking down traffic by platform per day
- Top Landing Pages - pages ranked by total visits, with per-platform badges (for example, "ChatGPT: 12, Perplexity: 8, Claude: 3")
- Recent Referral Activity - a live feed of individual referrals showing the source platform, landing page path, device type, browser, and timestamp
Data Tracked Per Visit
Each referral records: the AI source platform, the full referrer URL, landing page URL and path, page title, a server-generated visitor fingerprint, session ID, IP address, country code, user agent, device type, browser, and OS. Daily statistics are aggregated per source for fast chart rendering.
Multiple Tracked Sites
If your brand has multiple websites or subdomains, each one appears as a separate tracked site with its own tracking script token. Use the site switcher dropdown on the dashboard to view data per site.
Limitations
- Not all AI platforms pass referrer data - mobile apps may not include referrer headers
- Some browsers strip or shorten referrer information
- Google AI Overviews referrer detection relies on URL parameter patterns that may not cover all cases
- Reported numbers represent a lower bound - actual AI traffic may be higher
Connecting Referrals to Visibility
AI referral data complements your AI visibility data from the AI Visibility Dashboard. Visibility shows how often your brand is mentioned across AI platforms. Referrals show how much of that mention activity converts into actual website visits. Together they form a complete funnel from AI mention to site visit.
Pages that appear frequently in Citations tend to receive more AI referral traffic. Use both views to identify which cited pages are driving clicks and which may need stronger calls to action.