Documentation
How to connect your signals, read your AI funnel, and use DarkTraffiK Pro to close the gap.
Getting Started
Connect AI Crawler Reveal
Three options, in order of simplicity:
If your site runs on Cloudflare, Logpush streams server access logs to a destination of your choice. DarkTraffiK can consume a Cloudflare R2 bucket, an S3-compatible store, or an HTTP endpoint.
Cloudflare dashboard → Analytics → Logs → Create Logpush job → select HTTP Requests dataset → point to your DarkTraffiK endpoint.
Supported on: Cloudflare Business and Enterprise plans.
Export your server access logs (nginx, Apache, Caddy, Vercel) and paste or upload them in the Signal 1 setup screen. DarkTraffiK parses the user-agent strings and extracts all known AI bot hits.
Supported formats: nginx combined, Apache combined, Caddy JSON, Vercel JSON.
Add a single lightweight JavaScript snippet to your site. On each page load, it fires a request to DarkTraffiK's edge endpoint, capturing the user-agent string server-side. This catches AI crawlers that execute JavaScript (a growing proportion).
Note: this does not replace server log parsing for crawlers that don't execute JavaScript. Where possible, use Option A or B in addition.
Connect Citation Check
Enter your brand names, product names, and key topics in the Citation Check setup screen. DarkTraffiK will run scheduled prompt checks against major AI engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot) and record whether you're cited.
Requires a BYOK API key (OpenAI or Anthropic). Citation checks are deliberately light — the goal is a presence signal, not an exhaustive audit.
Connect AI Referral Reveal
Two options:
Connect your GA4 property via OAuth. DarkTraffiK pulls referral data, filters against the AI engine domain registry, and surfaces AI click-throughs by engine and landing page. Refreshed daily.
Export a GA4 referral report (Sessions → Source/Medium → filter for known AI domains) and paste the CSV into DarkTraffiK. Results are surfaced immediately.
Reading Your Funnel
The Funnel View
The Funnel View shows your three-signal funnel as a single connected diagram:
- →Pages crawled (Signal 1): how many of your pages were hit by AI crawlers in the last 30 days
- →Topics cited (Signal 2): how many of your key topics appeared in AI answers
- →Humans clicked (Signal 3): how many visitors arrived from AI referrers in GA4
Reading the drop-offs
Each stage transition is a potential break:
The crawled-but-not-cited gap list
The gap list shows topics (as pages) where Signal 1 is strong but Signal 2 is absent. Ranked by crawl_volume × citation_opportunity. The top items are your highest-priority content improvement targets.
GEO readiness score
The readiness score (0–100) reflects three underlying mechanisms:
- 01Training-data signals — entity recognition, structured data, brand mentions
- 02Retrieval signals — content structure, FAQ schema, LLM-readable formatting
- 03Live-search signals — freshness, IndexNow pings, PageSpeed score
Pro — Action Layer
Generating a gap-targeted brief
From the gap list, click Generate brief on any topic. DarkTraffiK sends the page content and the gap context to your configured AI provider and returns a structured brief including:
- ✓Answer-first article structure
- ✓E-E-A-T evidence requirements
- ✓FAQ schema recommendations
- ✓Quotable-statement prompts
- ✓Hedge-language flags
Reviewing and approving drafts
Approved briefs move to the HITM (Human-in-the-loop) queue, where DarkTraffiK generates a full draft article. Every draft waits for explicit approval — DarkTraffiK never auto-publishes in supervised mode.
Publishing to WordPress
On approval, DarkTraffiK publishes to your connected WordPress install via WP MCP:
- ✓Post created with full content
- ✓Rank Math meta fields populated (title, description, focus keyphrase)
- ✓IndexNow ping fired immediately on publish
Connection: Settings → Integrations → WordPress → enter your WP MCP endpoint URL.
Tracking citation lift
After publishing a gap-targeted piece, DarkTraffiK watches Signal 2 for that topic in subsequent weekly citation checks. If a citation appears, it's logged against the piece and surfaced in the Citation-lift dashboard.
API Reference
Authentication
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEYObtain your API key from Settings → API in your dashboard.
Get your funnel summary
GET /v1/funnel?site={site_id}Response:
{
"site": "yoursite.com",
"period": "30d",
"signal_1": { "pages_crawled": 47, "unique_bots": 5 },
"signal_2": { "topics_checked": 12, "topics_cited": 4 },
"signal_3": { "referral_visits": 61, "framing": "floor_estimate" },
"geo_score": 71,
"gap_count": 8
}Get the gap list
GET /v1/gaps?site={site_id}&limit=10Get GEO readiness score
GET /v1/geo-score?site={site_id}Troubleshooting
⚡ Signal 1 shows zero crawls
Check: (1) Is Logpush correctly configured and streaming? Test by viewing raw logs in your Cloudflare R2 bucket. (2) Is your robots.txt blocking AI crawlers? Check for blanket Disallow: / rules applying to *. (3) Have you waited 24 hours since connecting? The first crawl data may take up to 48 hours to surface.
⚡ ClaudeBot/GPTBot blocked in robots.txt
DarkTraffiK will flag this in your GEO readiness score. To allow specific bots while blocking others:
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /⚡ Signal 2 shows no citations for topics I know I rank for
AI citation patterns do not directly correlate with Google rankings. A page ranking #1 for a query may not be the one AI engines cite — structured content, direct answers, and entity clarity are stronger signals than PageRank.
⚡ GA4 showing zero AI referrals
Referrer stripping is significant and growing. Zero GA4 AI referrals does not mean zero AI visits — it means referrers were stripped. Cross-reference with Signal 1 (server-side crawl data). If crawl volume is high and GA4 is zero, stripping is the explanation.