Clicks on links in Google AI Mode can now be tracked because Google has removed the ‘noreferrer’ attribute.
Links in Google AI Mode, Google’s new AI search, were previously marked with the “noreferrer” attribute. This meant that the origin of traffic coming through these links could not be tracked. This traffic was therefore counted as “direct traffic” in Google Analytics.
Google had admitted that marking links with “noreferrer” was due to a mistake. And indeed, the attribute has since disappeared. The following example demonstrates this:
This means that you can now also track the traffic that websites receive via AI Mode. Unfortunately, it seems that Google won’t provide separate data on clicks and impressions from AI Mode in Google Search Console. Traffic data from tools like Google Analytics can at least help provide a somewhat clearer picture of the potential changes that may occur with the introduction of AI Mode.
