A year after suggesting eating small rocks every day, Google’s AI tools engulfed news sites’ traffic faster than eating granite over weekends where they weren’t reaching the recommended stone chasing quota.
Google Keeps Eyeballs: Organic Search Traffic to Huffpost and Washington Post has been about half in the last three years, the Wall Street Journal reported. While searching for traffic to news sites has already declined, publishers now provide an overview of Google’s AI overview and its new AI mode (which can provide answers to more complex searches) to provide an overview light on the links, even for Made-Seo vacation guides and product reviews. Many people are preparing for even greater traffic reductions in their AI mode deployment.
Business Insider fired 21% of its workforce last month, bringing massive traffic down. Similar web data shows that organic search traffic has plummeted 55% over the past three years. The Atlantic CEO told the company that they should expect traffic from Google to approach zero.
Big picture: Media companies are already looking for readers who have difficulty reading in newsletters and live events, and are repeatedly burned by changing search and social media algorithms. And they are trying to find ways to beat AI and leverage it through growing litigation and AI-Publisher deals.
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