> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.surgerank.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Connect Google Analytics to Track AI-Referred Traffic

> Connect your GA4 property to SurgeRank to measure AI-referred traffic, identify your top cited pages, and track how citation volume grows week over week.

Connecting Google Analytics lets you close the loop between earning citations and measuring the traffic those citations drive. Once your GA4 property is linked, SurgeRank maps AI engine referrals to your actual session data so you can see — at a page level — exactly how much value your citation strategy is generating.

## Prerequisites

Before connecting, make sure you have:

* A **Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property** with data flowing. Universal Analytics (UA) properties are **not supported**.
* A Google account with at least **Viewer** access to the GA4 property you want to connect.

## Connect GA4

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the integration settings">
    In SurgeRank, go to **Settings → Integrations → Google Analytics**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Sign in with Google">
    Click **Connect with Google** and sign in with the Google account that has access to your GA4 property. Grant the requested read permissions when prompted.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Select your GA4 property">
    After sign-in, use the dropdown to select the GA4 property you want to connect to SurgeRank.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save and activate">
    Click **Save**. SurgeRank will begin pulling session data into your dashboard. Allow up to **24 hours** for the first data to appear.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What SurgeRank shows

Once connected, SurgeRank surfaces the following metrics in your Analytics dashboard:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="AI-Referred Sessions" icon="arrow-trend-up">
    Traffic arriving via known AI engine referral domains, separated from your broader organic and direct channels.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Top Cited Pages by Sessions" icon="file-lines">
    A ranked list of the pages earning the most AI-referred visits, so you know what's working.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Week-over-Week AI Traffic Trend" icon="chart-line">
    A rolling chart showing whether your AI-referred session volume is growing, flat, or declining.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Citation-to-Session Attribution" icon="link">
    A direct mapping between your tracked citation events and the sessions those citations produced.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How AI referrals are identified

AI engines that send referral traffic show up in GA4 in a few different ways. SurgeRank maps all of the following automatically:

* **Known AI referrer domains** — such as `openai.com`, `perplexity.ai`, and `google.com` (for AI Mode queries).
* **Direct / dark traffic** — some AI-assisted browsers and apps strip referrer headers, causing sessions to appear as direct. SurgeRank uses citation co-occurrence signals to attribute a portion of this traffic where possible.

You don't need to modify your GA4 configuration or add custom UTM parameters for this to work.

## Disconnecting

To remove the integration, go to **Settings → Integrations → Google Analytics → Disconnect**. Historical session data that has already been synced to SurgeRank is retained and remains visible in your dashboard.

<Tip>
  It takes **7–14 days** of data after connecting before AI traffic trends become meaningful. Patterns in AI-referred sessions emerge over time, so check back after your first full week to get a reliable baseline.
</Tip>