Matomo 5.5.0: What this update changes for your web analytics.

Matomo 5.5.0 marks a turning point for web analytics. This version introduces features that allow you to better understand traffic from emerging digital sources, particularly AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, or Claude.
For e-commerce sites and digital agencies, this update becomes a powerful tool to measure the real impact of your content and optimize your marketing campaigns while respecting visitor privacy.
A dedicated “AI Assistants” channel to identify AI-driven traffic
One of the most remarkable new features of Matomo 5.5.0 is the introduction of a fully dedicated acquisition channel for AI assistants. Until now, traffic generated by these tools was often hidden among other sources, making it difficult to analyze.
With this new channel, visits from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity are automatically identified and grouped under a single acquisition category. This distinction not only allows you to visualize this traffic, but also to segment it in order to create targeted analyses and more effective marketing campaigns.
Imagine your visitors arriving on your website via a link suggested by ChatGPT. With this channel, you can track their journey precisely, measure their engagement, compare their behavior to visitors coming from SEO or SEA, and adapt your messages, offers, or content accordingly. The ability to segment and analyze AI-driven traffic becomes a lever to optimize your ROI and anticipate consumption trends linked to intelligent assistants.
This feature is directly integrated into the Acquisition reports, making the data clear and actionable. You can now identify which pages are most referenced by AI and determine which marketing strategies work best for this new type of visitor.
Enhanced security and privacy
Matomo 5.5.0 also places a strong emphasis on data protection and user security. The update introduces optional config_id randomization, which partially anonymizes visitor identifiers. This feature makes individual tracking more difficult while remaining fully compliant with GDPR. Enabling this option is optional, allowing you to choose based on your site’s privacy policy.
In addition, super administrators now benefit from extra protection. When a superuser edits their own account, the associated rights field is disabled to prevent accidental loss of access. This simple but crucial precaution secures rights management and avoids potentially complex access issues.
Finally, email notification management has been redesigned to simplify communication and reduce informational “noise.” Each user now receives a single consolidated email containing all token-related information, instead of multiple alerts. This centralization improves readability and makes managing permissions easier.
Technical and structural improvements
- On the technical side, Matomo 5.5.0 introduces several optimizations that enhance platform stability and performance. Annotations are now stored in a dedicated table, enabling faster access and smoother data management. Periods with no visits are properly handled in archives, eliminating “gaps” in reports and ensuring a complete view of your activity, even during low traffic periods.
- The JavaScript Tracker now includes the
setReferralUrlMaxLength()function, which allows control over the size of referral cookies. This improves both performance and data privacy, addressing concerns for sites committed to respecting personal information. - The user interface has also been improved. Theme and plugin management pages have been redesigned for greater intuitiveness, while the dashboard selector now prioritizes management and creation options, simplifying navigation and customization. These changes make analysis faster, clearer, and more collaborative.
- Finally, CSV and TSV exports have been corrected to ensure full compatibility with Excel, and the “Email Reports” menu has been renamed “Schedule Reports,” improving clarity and fluidity in scheduled report management.
Matomo’s user experience has been designed to simplify analysts’ work. Dashboards are reorganized with clearer hierarchy and smoother navigation. Data exports are now reliable, with line breaks correctly escaped, eliminating common errors when importing into spreadsheets.
These improvements allow you to save time, produce more accurate analyses, and share insights more quickly with your teams. Users can focus on understanding behaviors and trends rather than on time-consuming technical tasks.
Matomo 5.5.0 establishes itself as a visionary release for e-commerce sites and digital agencies. It allows you to integrate AI assistant traffic into your analyses, strengthens security and privacy, and improves the user experience without disrupting your existing environment.
This update doesn’t just add features—it transforms the way you observe and understand the web, providing precise visibility into traffic sources that were previously difficult to measure. Matomo 5.5.0 helps you stay ahead of your competitors while remaining true to your values of transparency, open source, and personal data protection. You gain finer, safer analytics that are perfectly suited for the age of artificial intelligence.
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