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AI Bot × AI Visit × GSC Crossref (ahrefs.com/blog)

report in Report on performance

Report: ai_crossref_blog.py

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AI Bot Crawls × AI Assistant Visits × Google Search Clicks

Scope: ahrefs.com/blog  ·  Project: 2278974 (Ahrefs)  ·  Current: 2026-04-12..2026-05-12  ·  Prior: 2026-03-13..2026-04-12
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AI Bot Hits (top-200)
735,076
602,089 editorial · 18.1% non-editorial
AI Assistant Visits
5,005
ChatGPT: 71% share
Google Search Clicks
17,396
top-500 /blog pages sample
Overlap Pages (3/3 channels)
87
editorial only · all 3 non-zero

Commentary & Insights

  • AI bot crawls (top-200 sample): 735,076 hits — 18.1% are non-editorial (WordPress JSON + assets); editorial-only: 602,089. Domain-wide total for /blog: ~1.9M editorial AI-bot hits.
  • AI assistant visits: 5,005 sessions across 6 named sources. ChatGPT = 71% (3,529 visits).
  • Google Search clicks: 17,396 clicks across the top-500 /blog pages.
  • Overlap (all 3 channels, editorial only): 87 qualifying URLs.
  • Heaviest editorial AI crawler: ChatGPT (ChatGPT-User: 1.09M hits).
  • ChatGPT dominates end-to-end — 70% of LLM visits, 1.26M raw bot hits, ~106:1 editorial crawl→visit ratio.
  • Gemini crawls aggressively, converts poorly. Top-crawled URLs are .js/.css. Most volume is asset scraping, not content ingestion.
  • Perplexity is the most efficient converter at ~17:1 — meaningful editorial hits, real article URLs, decent visit yield.
  • Meta-ExternalAgent (170K hits) and Applebot (103K) crawl heavily but drive zero attributable LLM visits — pure training scrapers, not live assistants.
  • Copilot has zero classified AI bot (Bing uses bingbot, which isn't classed as AI) — visit data lands but crawl side is invisible. Don't try to compute a ratio.
  • AI-meta content owns the AI Priority top. ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update, ai-overview-citations-top-10, what-is-llms-txt, geo-generative-engine-optimization all rank in the top 15 by AI Priority — content about AI search is what AI assistants cite most.
  • GSC top is dominated by evergreens. google-advanced-search-operators, google-keyword-planner, keyword-research all have strong Google ranking + moderate AI engagement. These are refresh candidates where Google ranks the page but AI synthesises the answer without citing.
  • Strong Bot, weak Web = AI sees but doesn't pick. Diagnose answer quality and direct-answer structure (TL;DR up top, clear definitions).
  • Low Bot, high Web = cited from training. Freshness updates compound here.
  • Balanced rows = cleanest signal of active AI engagement; prioritise updates here first.
  • Priority 1 — refresh balanced top-20: pages in the Top 25 overlap with non-trivial values in all three channels. Improvements compound — these are already being seen, cited, and ranked.
  • Priority 2 — fix the AI-sees-doesn't-pick gap: pages with high Bot, low Web (e.g. top-google-searches, hreflang-tags). Add direct-answer summaries, statistics boxes, and explicit definitions near the top.
  • Priority 3 — GSC-strong, AI-weak refresh: top GSC pages with low Web Visits (google-advanced-search-operators ranks #2 GSC but only 65 LLM visits). Modernise for 2026 AI citation patterns.
  • Priority 4 — refresh the decline cluster (mcp-use-cases, how-to-track-ai-overviews, ai-visibility) — these still have audience signal but are degrading on all sides.
  • Don't waste cycles on Meta/Apple traffic. They crawl 270K+ pages a month but drive zero visits. Make sure they're not crashing infrastructure — that's the only meaningful action.

Anomalies — excluded from rankings

Top 25 overlap pages — ranked by AI Priority

Non-zero in all three channels. AI Priority = geometric mean × 3 (penalises imbalance).
#URLBotWebGSCRawAI Priority
1 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ 22,749 985 1,860 25,594 10,401
2 https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/ 9,228 65 3,815 13,108 3,953
3 https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-is-llms-txt/ 6,430 38 661 7,129 1,634
4 https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-keyword-planner/ 5,055 32 909 5,996 1,583
5 https://ahrefs.com/blog/starter-plan/ 4,376 52 412 4,840 1,363
6 https://ahrefs.com/blog/top-google-searches/ 7,156 25 343 7,524 1,183
7 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/ 8,582 243 28 8,853 1,164
8 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ahrefs-pricing/ 6,465 29 280 6,774 1,123
9 https://ahrefs.com/blog/hreflang-tags/ 5,408 14 178 5,600 714
10 https://ahrefs.com/blog/geo-generative-engine-optimization/ 4,396 36 66 4,498 656
11 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overview-citations-top-10/ 6,329 114 14 6,457 649
12 https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-is-seo/ 2,830 34 103 2,967 644
13 https://ahrefs.com/blog/search-intent/ 3,808 76 33 3,917 636
14 https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-ai-overviews/ 6,374 30 45 6,449 615
15 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks/ 8,358 98 10 8,466 605
16 https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-web-guide/ 3,415 50 44 3,509 588
17 https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-are-backlinks/ 3,517 33 58 3,608 566
18 https://ahrefs.com/blog/long-tail-keywords/ 4,797 32 40 4,869 549
19 https://ahrefs.com/blog/free-keyword-research-tools/ 4,669 10 130 4,809 547
20 https://ahrefs.com/blog/eeat-seo/ 3,741 18 73 3,832 510
21 https://ahrefs.com/academy/blogging-for-business 3,654 39 33 3,726 503
22 https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-to-rank-in-ai-overviews/ 4,887 20 42 4,949 480
23 https://ahrefs.com/blog/domain-rating/ 4,029 13 78 4,120 480
24 https://ahrefs.com/blog/topical-authority/ 2,199 18 95 2,312 467
25 https://ahrefs.com/blog/internal-links-for-seo/ 3,961 43 21 4,025 459

Top 25 by individual channel

Source ↔ Bot mapping

Crawl→Visit ratio uses editorial-only bot totals (WordPress/asset noise excluded). Available for the top 3 platforms only.
AI SourceWeb VisitsBots SeenRaw CrawlEditorial CrawlCrawl→Visit (editorial)
ChatGPT 3,529 3 1,264,410 352,722 100 : 1
Gemini 547 4 51,663 5,839 11 : 1
Perplexity 431 2 29,971 7,325 17 : 1
Claude 367 4 126,487 n/a
Copilot 129 0 0 n/a
Mistral 2 1 458 n/a

Per-platform overlap (Bot + Web)

Trends — 30d vs prior 30d

Δ Priority = current AI Priority − prior. Rising/Declining rows must move that direction in ≥2 of 3 channels (balance filter).
#URLBot Δ%Web Δ%GSC Δ%Δ PriorityDir
1 https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-is-llms-txt/ +101% +65% +142% +818 3↑/0↓
2 https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-keyword-planner/ +145% +28% +145% +781 3↑/0↓
3 https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/ +13% +62% -6% +658 2↑/1↓
4 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ahrefs-pricing/ +3% +45% +177% +424 3↑/0↓
5 https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-web-guide/ +55% +14% +389% +301 3↑/0↓
6 https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-is-seo/ +38% +21% +171% +255 3↑/0↓
7 https://ahrefs.com/blog/top-google-searches/ +51% +32% -6% +223 2↑/1↓
8 https://ahrefs.com/blog/eeat-seo/ +68% +50% +74% +198 3↑/0↓
9 https://ahrefs.com/blog/long-tail-keywords/ +33% +39% +82% +183 3↑/0↓
10 https://ahrefs.com/blog/hreflang-tags/ +43% +56% +7% +179 3↑/0↓
11 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overview-citations-top-10/ +17% -3% +100% +155 2↑/1↓
12 https://ahrefs.com/blog/keyword-intent/ +27% -34% +250% +121 2↑/1↓
13 https://ahrefs.com/blog/title-tag-seo/ +17% +57% +350% +110 3↑/0↓
14 https://ahrefs.com/blog/keyword-cannibalization/ +29% -11% +95% +105 2↑/1↓
15 https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-ai-overviews/ +41% +43% -15% +100 2↑/1↓
#URLBot Δ%Web Δ%GSC Δ%Δ PriorityDir
1 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ -49% +56% -16% -1,473 1↑/2↓
2 https://ahrefs.com/blog/mcp-use-cases/ -6% -38% -73% -258 0↑/3↓
3 https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-to-track-ai-overviews/ +7% -29% -59% -139 1↑/2↓
4 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-visibility/ -17% -43% -26% -118 0↑/3↓
5 https://ahrefs.com/blog/domain-rating/ +1% -32% -22% -109 1↑/2↓
6 https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-percentage-of-new-content-is-ai-generated/ +20% -21% -67% -101 1↑/2↓
7 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-seo-statistics/ -13% -67% +0% -94 0↑/2↓
8 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/ +14% -8% -24% -93 1↑/2↓
9 https://ahrefs.com/blog/chatgpt-has-12-percent-of-googles-search-volume/ +6% -36% -50% -91 1↑/2↓
10 https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-long-does-seo-take/ +19% -21% -46% -70 1↑/2↓
11 https://ahrefs.com/blog/ahrefs-seo-metrics/ -3% +20% -58% -53 1↑/2↓
12 https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-to-rank-in-ai-overviews/ -12% -38% +35% -49 1↑/2↓
13 https://ahrefs.com/blog/affiliate-marketing/ +11% -27% -16% -47 1↑/2↓
14 https://ahrefs.com/blog/brand-radar-methodology/ +22% -38% -19% -47 1↑/2↓
15 https://ahrefs.com/blog/search-rankings-ai-citations/ +23% -29% -40% -37 1↑/2↓