# ChatGPT removes UTM tracking from its outbound links

Published: 2026-10-14T15:05:03.652Z · Source: Search Engine Roundtable (https://www.seroundtable.com/utm-parameters-missing-chatgpt-42299.html)
Source date: 2026-10-14
Entities: chatgpt, openai, gemini

ChatGPT has stopped appending utmsource=chatgpt.com to its outbound links and now opens them with noopener,noreferrer, which also blocks the referrer header, per Search Engine Roundtable. Adobe's Cedric Huesler, analyzing about 500 pages that got at least 5% of their traffic from ChatGPT, found ChatGPT-attributed visits fell by roughly 31,000 a day from October 9-13 while direct traffic on the same pages rose by about 26,000 a day — visits that analytics tools can no longer tell apart from ordinary direct traffic. The timing lines up with GPT-6's release about a week earlier; OpenAI has not said whether the change was intentional.

Why it matters: Losing the UTM tag means any site measuring AI-referred traffic by source will now undercount ChatGPT and overcount direct, making it harder to show that citations in ChatGPT answers are driving visits at all.

## What this answers

**Why did my ChatGPT traffic drop in my website analytics?**

Around October 9, 2026, ChatGPT stopped adding a utm_source=chatgpt.com tag to its outbound links and started opening them with noopener,noreferrer, so visits that used to register as ChatGPT traffic now show up as direct traffic instead, per Search Engine Roundtable.

**Does ChatGPT still send referrer data to the sites it links to?**

No — ChatGPT's outbound links now open with noopener,noreferrer, which blocks the referrer header along with the UTM tag, per Search Engine Roundtable.


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