# AI SEO Research: First-Party Studies and Method > AI SEO research by Lawrence Hitches: 24 first-party studies across six datasets (108 SEO tests, 1.2M AI sessions, 100 brands), dated, linked, with the method. **Source:** https://www.lawrencehitches.com/ai-seo-research/ --- ## Datasets Six datasets carry all 24 studies. 8 of the studies sit on StudioHawk or Search Engine Land because the agency owns the data; the rest are on this site. A study that shares a dataset with another is the same evidence read from a different angle, so count the datasets before you count the articles. ### The 100-brand Australian ecommerce dataset Last read 20 September 2026 · measured **100 Australian ecommerce brands, 21 months.** GA4, channels split by referrer. July 2024 to March 2026. ChatGPT sent 340,000 sessions and about $690,000 of revenue; Google still drives 96.2% of search revenue; Bing Organic converts at 3.6%. 9 studies - [utm_source=chatgpt.com: What It Means and What the Traffic Is Worth](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/utm-source-chatgpt-explained/) lawrencehitches.com, 20 September 2026 - [Search Engine Differences Explained](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/search-engine-differences/) lawrencehitches.com, 20 September 2026 - [Perplexity Referral Traffic in GA4](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/perplexity-referral-traffic/) lawrencehitches.com, 15 August 2026 - [What Your Board Is Asking About AI Search (And the Honest Answer)](https://studiohawk.com.au/blog/what-your-board-is-asking-about-ai-search/) StudioHawk, 20 July 2026 - [What 100 Australian eCommerce brands taught us about AI search (The High-Ticket Effect)](https://studiohawk.com.au/blog/ai-search-high-ticket-effect/) StudioHawk, 2 June 2026 - [Gemini Referral Traffic in GA4](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/gemini-referral-traffic/) lawrencehitches.com, 17 April 2026 - [AI Search and Ecommerce Stats (2025)](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/australian-ecommerce-ai-search-statistics/) lawrencehitches.com, 12 April 2026 - [AI Search and Ecommerce: The 100-Brand Report](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/ai-seo-ecommerce-report/) lawrencehitches.com, undated - [Chosen, Not Clicked: eCommerce SEO Guide to Visibility in 2026 (white paper)](https://studiohawk.com.au/chosen-not-clicked/) StudioHawk, undated ### The 1.2 million AI sessions format dataset Last read 24 August 2026 · measured **1,203,748 AI referral sessions across 600+ businesses, 7.5 million pages classified.** GA4 landing pages classified by format. 15 January to 14 July 2026. Interactive tools and calculators earn 7.5 times their share of pages; comparison pages rank fifth of seven formats. 3 studies - [Format Leverage: What 1.2 Million AI Visits Say About the Content AI Actually Cites](https://studiohawk.com.au/blog/ai-search-format-leverage/) StudioHawk, 24 August 2026 - [What Gets Cited in AI Search Is Not What You Think](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/what-gets-cited-in-ai-search/) lawrencehitches.com, 22 August 2026 - [AI Traffic Leverage Ratio: Which Formats Earn AI Traffic](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/ai-traffic-leverage-ratio/) lawrencehitches.com, 22 August 2026 ### The 1,000+ audits dataset Last read 22 August 2026 · measured **1,000+ StudioHawk SEO and AI search audits across seven verticals, plus an 83-site llms.txt check.** Audit records. Trailing twelve months to mid 2026. 89% weak titles and meta, 84% URL problems, 84% content gaps, 81% weak E-E-A-T; 82% of 83 top Australian sites have no llms.txt. 2 studies - [The truth about llms.txt](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/the-truth-about-llms-txt/) lawrencehitches.com, 25 May 2026 - [How to Rank in AI Search with Answer Engine Optimisation (white paper)](https://studiohawk.com.au/blog/white-paper-how-to-rank-in-ai-search/) StudioHawk, 23 June 2025 ### This site as the lab Last read 21 September 2026 · measured, September bot mix directional **lawrencehitches.com, about 380 live pages, 108 finished controlled tests since 2023.** Search Console, SEOtesting, Bing Webmaster Tools, Cloudflare verified-bot categories, GA4, Clarity. March to September 2026 for the three-channel reads. Median test outcome 0.0%; one page lost 93% of Google clicks while AI cited it more; 17,211 citations across 313 grounding queries. 6 studies - [Claude Referral: What claude.ai/referral Means in GA4](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/claude-ai-referral-traffic/) lawrencehitches.com, 20 September 2026 - [AI Search ROI: How to Measure the Return](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/ai-search-roi/) lawrencehitches.com, 19 September 2026 - [Visual Semantics and Topical Authority: I Ran the Test](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/visual-semantics-topical-authority/) lawrencehitches.com, 23 July 2026 - [How AI Is Changing SEO (and Whether It Is Killing It)](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/how-ai-is-changing-seo/) lawrencehitches.com, 11 July 2026 - [How I Ranked for AI SEO Consultant Melbourne in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/how-i-ranked-for-ai-seo-consultant-melbourne/) lawrencehitches.com, 24 June 2026 - [I Lost 93% of My Clicks. AI Cites Me More Than Ever.](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/clicks-to-citations/) lawrencehitches.com, 17 June 2026 ### The social and video search dataset Last read 31 July 2026 · directional, one channel **StudioHawk's YouTube channel in Google Search, first weeks of platform properties.** Search Console platform properties. July 2026. 18,233 Google impressions on day one, 152,000+ by day eight, 1,005 queries in two days with 303 on page one. 3 studies - [Why every SEO team now needs a social topical map](https://searchengineland.com/seo-social-topical-map-484018) Search Engine Land, 31 July 2026 - [How to Rank Your Social Content on Google: The Social Topical Map Method](https://studiohawk.com.au/blog/how-to-rank-social-content-on-google/) StudioHawk, 27 July 2026 - [Your Social Videos Are Already Ranking in Google](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/your-social-videos-are-already-ranking/) lawrencehitches.com, 16 July 2026 ### Attribution experiments Last read 11 February 2026 · directional **Four field experiments across client and own-brand accounts.** CRM attribution and prompt tracking. 2025. AI search compresses consideration, not discovery: more than $100,000 of closed revenue from 20+ AI-influenced leads in a year. 1 study - [What 4 AI search experiments reveal about attribution and buying decisions](https://searchengineland.com/what-4-ai-search-experiments-reveal-about-attribution-and-buying-decisions-468702) Search Engine Land, 11 February 2026 ## Method - **Every change is annotated the day it ships** , in SEOtesting, and material changes become tests with a control period. That is what makes a single-page read like the EntityMap result possible. - **Three channels, three instruments.** Google clicks from Search Console, Bing clicks from Bing Webmaster Tools, AI grounding from Cloudflare verified-bot categories and the Bing AI Search report. Impressions are never read as demand. - **Agency datasets are GA4 exports across the StudioHawk client estate** , landing pages classified by format and channels split by referrer. Per-brand figures stay anonymous. - **One vendor per table.** Keyword difficulty and volume are proprietary scales, so no table mixes vendors. - **Nulls are published.** The Mushroom definitional treatment read -1% against a -1% control and was retired. The visual topical layer test read flat on five pages and was retired. **Confidence labels.** *Measured* means a controlled read on real data with a named instrument. *Directional* means a real number from a sample too small to bank, or a metric that moves week to week. Nothing on this page is an estimate. ## Applying the research - **Split your channels first.** If Google clicks are falling while position holds, you are in the pattern the [clicks-to-citations](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/clicks-to-citations/) study describes, and the fix is on the Bing and citation side, not the title tag. - **Audit format before copy.** Compute your own [AI Traffic Leverage Ratio](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/ai-traffic-leverage-ratio/) ; if tools and calculators over-earn on your site the way they did across 600 businesses, build one before the next blog post. - **Map what you are already cited for.** Run a prompt set through the [AI search tracker](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/ai-search-tracker/) and the [brand visibility check](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/check-brand-ai-search-visibility/) ; defend share where you have it, win more where volume is high and share is low. - **Research queries as fan-outs.** [Query fan-out](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/query-fan-out-seo/) is the research unit for AI engines; the [free keyword tool](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/ai-keyword-tool/) labels intent and funnel stage on a whole list at once. - **Test one change against a control and read it on the date.** The 108-test archive says the median change does nothing, so the read is the product, not the change. Working on this for a business? Start with the [AI SEO consulting](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/ai-seo-consultant/) page, or take the [free AI SEO roadmap](https://www.lawrencehitches.com/contact/). --- *Lawrence Hitches is an AI SEO consultant in Melbourne and Chief of Staff at StudioHawk, Australia's most awarded SEO agency. Agent edition of this site: https://www.lawrencehitches.com/md/index.md*