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SEO Pulse: Ranking volatility and ChatGPT referral tracking complicate search reporting
Search Engine Journal’s roundup covers several current SEO developments: Nozzle reported a sharp rise in Google results pages missing their usual sites, potentially linked to responses to AI scraping, while ChatGPT referral sessions reportedly fell after inline links lost the chatgpt.com UTM tag. The item also discusses how Google and Bing present AI-search links and citations.
Why it matters: Marketers should avoid treating short-term ranking or AI-referral changes as genuine performance shifts without checking baselines and first-party analytics. The findings also highlight growing uncertainty around how AI crawlers and search engines affect visibility and attribution. It matters primarily as a measurement and reporting warning, rather than proof of a broad, permanent change to search.