But publishers have seen this movie before. New publisher data reinforces the more familiar pattern: search referral traffic is declining year over year.<\/p>\n
Digital Content Next (DCN), which counts the New York Times, Cond\u00e9 Nast and Vox among its approximately 40 member companies, checked in with 19 of them between May and June to see what was happening to their Google search referral traffic. The upshot: Google AI Overviews is indeed harming publisher traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Organic search referral traffic from Google is declining broadly, with the majority of DCN member sites \u2014 spanning both news and entertainment \u2014 experiencing traffic losses from Google search between 1% and 25%. Twelve of the respondent companies were news brands, and seven were non-news.<\/p>\n
Over eight weeks in May and June 2025, the median Google Search referral was down almost every week, with losses outpacing gains two-to-one. For the seven non-news brands in the survey, the downward slope was steady and unbroken.<\/p>\n
Across the eight weeks, the median YoY decline in referred traffic from Google Search was -10% overall, -7% for news brands, and -14% for non-news brands, per the results.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, stressed that these losses are a direct consequence of Google AI Overviews, as many publishers claimed in their responses. The latest data offers a \u201cground truth\u201d of what\u2019s actually happening, cutting through Google\u2019s vague claims about \u201cquality clicks,\u201d made in its latest post, he added. \u201cI think all publishers are ignoring Google\u2019s post. But this probably helps ground that,\u201d added Kint.<\/p>\n
The findings come shortly after a recent Pew survey<\/a> of 900 U.S. consumers found that AI summaries are making users less likely to click through to links. <\/p>\n Meanwhile U.K. trade body Professional Publishers Association announced<\/a> on Thursday that it has submitted evidence <\/a>and recommendations to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on how Google\u2019s AI features in search are harming publishers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The PPA maintains that Google holds 93% of the U.K. search market and that AI Overviews and the U.K. launch of AI Mode on July 28, are shifting user behavior toward zero-click results and away from source sites. AIOs have also expanded into Google Discover, which is reducing sources to citations rather than clicks, said a spokesperson.<\/p>\n Many brands report 10 to 25 percent year-over-year CTR declines even where rankings are stable, per its evidence, which it has gathered from members, which include Cond\u00e9 Nast, Future, Immediate Media and Hearst Magazines. The PPA pointed to a lifestyle publisher member, which shared data on a popular search query \u201chow to get rid of [insect].\u201d It found that despite still ranking on page one and impressions remaining relatively steady, the CTR fell sharply from 5.1 percent to 0.6 percent over the past year.\u00a0<\/p>\n The PPA also cited similar drops from an automotive content publisher, which saw a 25 percent drop in traffic to articles ranking first in organic search despite a 7% increase in search visibility. And over the same period, CTR declined from 2.75 percent to 1.71 percent, per the evidence submitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hope in the form of Department of Justice remedies\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n There is some hope on the horizon, in the form of a pending remedies order from Judge Amit Mehta in the Department of Justice\u2019s Google Search antitrust case. Baked into the numerous proposals being waded through is one core one, which, if it were to be granted, would be big news for publishers: the proposed separation of Google\u2019s AI bot crawler from its search crawler, said Kint.<\/p>\n Currently, publishers can\u2019t block Google\u2019s AI crawler without disappearing off the search index entirely, so unless a DOJ mandate comes through forcing Google to change this, publishers are somewhat stuck in a holding pattern.<\/p>\n The judge could issue an injunction requiring immediate action rather than waiting for an appeal, stressed Kint. Typically, the DoJ would need to show that irreparable harm is occurring and that it\u2019s likely to succeed on appeal. \u201cTraffic is down double digits with some publishers, so that harm is happening in real time.\u201d A ruling could force Google to provide the choice and separate the services right away, which would be a significant move, he added.<\/p>\n European publishers are also pushing for<\/a> EU regulators to take swift action on the same issue with Google AI Overviews, claiming the that AI Overviews is having a detrimental effect on independent publishers\u2019 sites, and that the inability to opt out of Google\u2019s AI crawler without dropping off search rankings is causing irreparable harm. Google still maintains that many of the claims made about traffic from search are \u201chighly incomplete.\u201d A spokesperson for Google didn\u2019t immediately return a request for comment on this story.<\/p>\n Preventative strategies\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Publishers have a long history of adapting to Google\u2019s changes, learning to navigate algorithm shifts, product updates, and new features while finding ways to maintain traffic and revenue.<\/p>\n Many have long argued that staying on top of breaking news and maintaining high-quality journalism is key to performing well on AI-driven platforms. SEO practices still matter, and five publishing execs recently told Digiday they\u2019re not falling for hype<\/a> around GEO and jumping to switch up their techniques. Others are being more proactive<\/a> with adapting their SEO strategies.<\/p>\n Related Insights<\/p>\n
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