According to SE Ranking’s analysis of over 101,000 websites utilizing Google Analytics, Google’s Gemini has experienced a remarkable uptick in referral traffic to websites, more than doubling between November and January.
This surge commenced in December, following the rollout of Gemini 3 across Google’s suite of products. SE Ranking reported a 51% increase in December and a 42% rise in January, culminating in an overall enhancement of approximately 115%.
For clarification, SE Ranking offers AI visibility tracking tools, and the data presented herein originates from their proprietary Google Analytics dataset.
Gemini Surpasses Perplexity
In January, the data gathered by SE Ranking indicated that Gemini directed 29% more visitors to websites than Perplexity on a global scale. In the United States, this discrepancy was even more pronounced at 41%.
Conversely, just five months earlier in August, Perplexity was delivering approximately threefold the referral traffic compared to Gemini, according to the same dataset.
ChatGPT’s Traffic Diminution
ChatGPT witnessed its peak referral traffic in October, followed by a consistent decline. SE Ranking recorded an 8% decrease in November and an 18% fall in December, albeit with a slight recovery in January.
Despite this downturn, ChatGPT remains immensely influential, accounting for roughly 80% of all AI-driven referral traffic to websites. Its lead over Gemini diminished significantly, from about 22 times more in October to roughly 8 times in January, although the gap remains considerable.
Data from Similarweb corroborated this trend, revealing a similar trajectory in direct visits to chatbot sites. ChatGPT’s traffic share fell from 86% to 64% over the past year, while Gemini’s share increased from 5% to 21%. While the two datasets measure different parameters, they yield parallel conclusions.
The Impact of Gemini 3
The timing of the traffic escalation aligns closely with Google’s deployment of the Gemini 3 models.
Upcoming releases included Gemini 3 Pro on November 18, Gemini 3 Deep Think on December 4, and Gemini 3 Flash on December 17, the latter becoming the standard model within the Gemini application as well as AI Mode for Search.
Prior to these launches, Gemini’s referral traffic had remained relatively stagnant for eight months. SE Ranking’s data revealed a modest growth trajectory of about 4% per month from January to October, leading to a remarkable spike of 47% monthly growth in December and January, reflecting a twelvefold acceleration from the preceding rate.
AI Traffic Contextualized
Collectively, all AI platforms contribute only a modest share to the overall web traffic. SE Ranking estimates this figure at approximately 0.24% of global internet traffic as of January, a rise from 0.15% in 2025.
Earlier investigations by SE Ranking, encompassing 13,700 websites, indicated that Google was responsible for generating 94% of organic traffic.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT and Perplexity began to appear in referral statistics. The expanded dataset examined here incorporates 101,574 sites across 250 markets, yet employs the same GA-centric methodology.
Significance of Findings
While two months of growth for Gemini offers insightful data, it does not unequivocally forecast the trajectory of AI referral traffic by year’s end.
The increase observed from November to January is certainly quantifiable and aligns with a known product launch, but it remains too premature to deduce a sustained trend.
The milestone surpassed in traffic by Gemini over Perplexity, however, is more concrete. Gemini may now be emerging as a more substantial referral source in your analytics, a detail worth verifying.
Future Observations
SE Ranking has committed to scrutinizing AI referral traffic trends through 2026. Although Google has not publicly shared specific referral traffic metrics for Gemini or AI Mode, the forthcoming update of Similarweb’s AI Tracker may yield additional insights regarding the continuity of Gemini’s growth post-January.
Source link: Searchenginejournal.com.
