Traffic from chatgpt

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   Shesabutterflyposted 6 days ago

   One of my articles had a blip in traffic after seeing months of zero. I was curious as to what was going on and according to the referrer stats, all traffic is from chatgpt.
   
   I have never used it before, does chatgpt now provide source links or perhaps someone asked for references/sources and whether related or not, chatgpt threw out my article link?
   
   I'll take all the views I can get, simply thought this was a weird one. Especially considering this article was last updated 5 years ago and is nearly impossible to find in SERPS.

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      bravewarriorposted 6 days agoin reply to this

      That's really odd, Cholee. Your guess as to how and why the traffic came from ChatGPT is plausible, I guess. Interesting twist on the effects of AI!

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      Kenna McHughposted 6 days agoin reply to this

      Cholee, that's interesting. I have nothing like that in my traffic sources. Though overall, I am showing an uptrend.

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      Patty Inglish, MSposted 3 days agoin reply to this

      Outbrain/TEADS is accessing my articles frequently this week. Their site says they create content that looks like articles but are really ads (click bait I think). I can't see any of my accessed work tho.

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      FabianRodriguizposted 2 days agoin reply to this

      Yeah, its quite normal. For example if you ask chatGPT how to check your domain nameservers, it will share the bunch of links of websites like whois. com or whois.domaintools. com.

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2. 79

   Rupert Taylorposted 6 days ago

   Nothing from ChatGPT for me. In fact, next to nothing from anybody.
   
   About a month ago I lamented that my 1,126 article had drawn fewer than 500 views in one day. Now, I've dipped below 400. According to my calculations, I will be getting negative views by September 15 and TAG will begin clawing back the pittance it has paid me to date.
   
   Incidentally, I just checked referrers and found that 38 views came from Owlcation during the last 30 days, even though I have no articles on Owlcation.

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      bravewarriorposted 6 days agoin reply to this

      I have no ChatGPT under Traffic Sources (it's not even in the list). Where do I find Referrers? I don't see it in the menu on my stats page.

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         Shesabutterflyposted 6 days agoin reply to this

         You have to go into your account and then select any article via the author view link.
         
         When you are on the editing page you will see Edit, Stats, Delete, Submit to network site, & View on Discover at the top. If you click stats, a new page pops up with overview, referrers, countries, and search phrases.
         
         If I see any anomalies, I like to check there to see if anything interesting is happening with my articles.

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            bravewarriorposted 6 days agoin reply to this

            Thanks for the info, Cholee. I guess I'll try that with traffic I've seen in the last seven days just to see what's going on. Especially with older (they all are!) articles that were updated a few years ago but are seeing new, current traffic.

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               Shesabutterflyposted 6 days agoin reply to this

               You're welcome! I find it helpful sometimes. At least it explains some of the weird traffic patterns I see.

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      Shesabutterflyposted 6 days agoin reply to this

      I also have occasional traffic from Owlcation, despite having no content remaining there. I figured it was due to someone having a link still embedded in their content or comment section (although I highly doubt any reader is scrolling far enough through the comments to find any links there).
      
      I did notice today the editors have been hard at work rewriting articles despite never fully transitioning the site to the Parade network. I say rewriting, because the URL link does not match the title, so the article cannot be from the date or current article title published. Not to mention, none of the named editors or authors have profiles here on HP.
      
      Some articles do say UPDATED, but not all of them. Especially if they are by or reviewed by "The Owlcation Editors" (whomever they may be).
      
      One article is even complete with an Editor's Note at the bottom. "Editor's Note: While we may use AI to assist with research, compilation, and organization of the content on Owlcation, every article is reviewed and curated by real editors and informed by human insight and discretion from our editorial team."
      
      Edit: All the new Owlcation articles have url's that are tied to current articles on Discover. One of the newest published ones is a rewrite of one of Paul's. They even used the same pictures and one of the videos he used.
      
      Despite what Matt has said, the future of HP is definitely gone. They have begun the mining of Discover articles.

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3. 77

   Eric Cauncaposted 6 days ago

   I also get traffics from Chatgpt.

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      Shesabutterflyposted 5 days agoin reply to this

      I don't know when you first noticed that type of traffic, however staff has re-written one of your articles from Discover for Owlcation. It was posted five days ago.
      
      I don't know if it's related, but one of my articles that had this traffic was published today by staff. Their rewrite is a mix of my content and AI generated search results.

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         theraggededgeposted 5 days agoin reply to this

         How did you find these, Cholee?

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            Shesabutterflyposted 5 days agoin reply to this

            I have been monitoring the niche sites set to move waiting for them to actually change like Dengarden & Pethelpful. When Jerry made his post, I started watching more frequently. It didn't make sense for staff to pay authors for content for one niche site yet not take anything else for the other's that were supposed to have moved way back in April. Despite what Matt has said in the past, I simply did not believe him.
            
            They stopped writing news for Delishably and Wehavekids and I knew something was up. Yesterday I saw them.
            
            The first article posted to the home page I knew I had read and referenced multiple times in the past; however, the title did not seem quite right, and I knew the author/date were wrong. I went to Discover and sure enough the article I remember was there. The title and end url are exactly the same, but the content on Owlcation is mixed with AI and switched around. That particular article has the editor's note I posted above to Rupert at the bottom of it.
            
            After I saw that I started looking through all the new content, and all the titles were either the same or very similar to articles I knew had been on Owlcation for years. Cross-referencing with Discover I found that most of the "new" titles on Owlcation were in fact copies of content on Discover (with the exact same title, which made them easy to find). I did not open most articles, because I don't want to give HP traffic and hovering over the content will provide me with the url; but based on the 3 I did open including mine, it is clear they are recreating our articles with AI.
            
            When I saw my article posted yesterday, I was pissed. They took my best performing article mixed it with content from AI search results and never even noted it like the previous article. I've seen two of Paul's and one of Eric Caunca's. Although I didn't know that it was his initially.
            
            The only thing I cannot figure out is how they have the same url. Almost like they have saved versions of our old content on Owlcation and they simply need to restore them with new content (yet most articles do not say UPDATED, so the page is essentially new). I don't know why else the back half would be the same. I thought the url's were generated based on the title of the article. However, that is not always the case with these new ones being posted to Owlcation. The identical url's also made it easy to find/compare content on Discover to Owlcation, because it helped identify which article they took from if there were ones with similar titles.
            
            After the debacle with SI, I'm a bit surprised they are rewriting with AI. Perhaps, mixing it with real author content makes it different.

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4. 91

   Venkatachari Mposted 6 days ago

   I, too, do not have any traffic from ChatGPT. But most views are there from google.com

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   Genna Eastposted 6 days ago

   Just curious...wasn't ChatGPT developed by the OpenAI Company?

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      Shesabutterflyposted 6 days agoin reply to this

      I think so, but honestly not entirely sure. I have nothing to do with AI, but I did a little searching today and it looks like Chatgpt provides links only for paid users. I could be wrong though.

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      theraggededgeposted 6 days agoin reply to this

      Yes, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT

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   theraggededgeposted 5 days ago

   I'd like to see a response from Matt about this.
   
   Currently I am reluctant to remove my articles as I am still making pay out (even last month when I thought I'd missed it but forgot there would be Amazon). This month earnings increased a bit too.
   
   However, I'd be furious if my work was stolen in that way - it would be too late by the time it happened so I need to preempt it somehow.
   
   Thanks for doing that work - it's helpful.

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      Shesabutterflyposted 5 days agoin reply to this

      I need less than $5 dollars. I want to hold out, but honestly I know it's only a matter of time before the other chatgpt viewed article appears on Owlcation.
      
      The last email I sent to team@hubpages about photo misidentification was answered by someone named Luke. The photo's are still wrong over a month later. I don't know where Matt is, but that email sat for a week before someone responded to me.

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      Kenna McHughposted 5 days agoin reply to this

      If a major news outlet finds out about this, it's headlines. Another SNFU of former/current owners of SI. Another reason journalism is going south that will pissoff talented and genuine journalists.

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         theraggededgeposted 5 days agoin reply to this

         Mmm... I bet you have some contacts??

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