Last updated on March 25th, 2025 at 10:24 am
In the constant war against the undefined channel group in GA4, we have noticed on many clients accounts a surge of AI traffic.
You might want to block AI traffic from your website by writing a robots.txt file that prevents the crawl by these bots, if you run an editorial project based on pageviews for ads, but, in the case you run a conversion-driven project such as an e-commerce or a lead generation website, this AI traffic might show incredible conversion performance, leading you to better understand how important is technical SEO in your case, and inversely to the previous case how important is for you to allow generative AI platforms to answer transactional or commercial queries to your platform.
So here’s how you can easily group ai traffic and analyze it in ga4.
Why Filter AI Traffic in GA4?
AI bots often visit websites to scrape content, simulate user queries, or interact with APIs. While not inherently harmful, they:
- Distort user analytics (e.g., high bounce rates, irrelevant sessions).
- Affect conversion tracking by introducing non-human interactions.
- Lead to inaccurate reporting that misguides marketing decisions.
Filtering AI-generated traffic ensures clean data and accurate user insights
Step-by-Step Guide to Filtering AI Bot Traffic in GA4
Step 1: Access Custom Channel Grouping in GA4
- Sign in to your Google Analytics 4 account.
- Navigate to Admin (bottom left corner).
- Under the Data Display section, click Custom Channel Grouping.
- Click Create New Channel Group.
Step 2: Define a New Custom Channel for AI Traffic
- Click on Add condition group.
- In the first dropdown, select Source.
- In the second dropdown, select Matches regex.
- Enter the following regular expression (regex):
^.*(ai|openai|copilot|chatgpt|gemini|gpt|neeva|writesonic|nimble|outrider|perplexity|google\.bard|bard\.google|bard).*$
Step 3: Save and Apply the Channel Grouping
- Name the new channel AI Traffic.
- Click Save Channel.
- GA4 will now categorize any traffic matching this regex into the AI Traffic channel.
And there you have it.
Custom Channel Groups in ga4 are retroactive, so you can just reload the page, go back to your reports, and enjoy the data, filtering per the newly created channel group, and then adding as a secondary dimension the source.
Pietro Mingotti is an Italian entrepreneur and digital marketing specialist, best known as the founder and owner of Fuel LAB, a leading digital marketing and technical marketing agency based in Italy, operating worldwide. With a passion for creativity, innovation, and technology, Pietro has established himself as a thought leader in the field of digital marketing and has helped numerous companies achieve their marketing goals.