Set up AI tracking

When someone clicks a link to your website in ChatGPT or another AI assistant, Matomo can recognise where the visit came from. A chatbot retrieving your content itself uses a different mechanism. The two cases need different tracking methods.

Track visits from AI recommendations

If speo already records page views on your website, you do not need an extra tracking script for these visits. Matomo recognises supported AI assistants from the referral information sent by the browser.

1. Connect your website. Use its tracking code or a suitable WordPress integration. If Matomo is already installed, update that integration with the speo connection details. Each page view should be recorded only once.
2. Check tracking. Use a browser whose visits are not excluded from tracking. Give any required consent, then open a page on your website. Check the pages report for today. New data may take some time to appear while reports are processed.
3. View AI referrals. Select your website and date range in Matomo. Open Acquisition → AI Assistants to see recognised AI referrals.

Attribution depends on the referral information the app or browser provides. When that information is missing, a visit from an AI recommendation may appear as a direct visit, for example.

Track direct chatbot requests

A chatbot retrieving a page for its answer usually does not run JavaScript. Your website’s tracking script cannot detect those requests. Instead, the website’s infrastructure must identify them and report them to Matomo.

Matomo supports integrations for WordPress and CDNs including Cloudflare and Amazon CloudFront. Other environments can use a custom server-side integration. The right location depends on which system handles the request: if a cache serves the page without running WordPress, a WordPress plugin cannot report that access. Each request should therefore be recorded by just one integration.

Contact us to arrange this additional tracking. We will review the appropriate integration with you and clarify how requests count towards your hit allowance. Your website’s normal visit tracking continues alongside it.

What appears in chatbot reports

Matomo records recognised chatbots retrieving content in response to users’ requests. Crawlers used for search indexing or training AI models are outside the scope of these chatbot reports. Once tracking is configured, the reports show which supported chatbots requested your pages and documents.