Three months after Google began rolling out AI Overview in the UK, publishers are trying to understand the exact impact on traffic, with some outlets seeing a significant drop in engagement from search. is reported.
Based on early metrics, and as a “conservative rough guide,” publishers have Traffic from search is down 5-10%.
“That number will definitely increase as AI overviews become more prevalent for the ‘keywords’ that publishers typically try to rank for,” the official explained.
Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, previously said that Google “remains focused on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators,” adding, “Links included in the AI overview “We think we’ll get more clicks than if we presented it as the traditional web.” list of queries.”
But publishers are reporting the opposite effect, and industry association representatives have suggested such statements amount to a “myth.”
Adam Vowles, director of SEO and audience development at Immediate Media, said his brand saw click-through rates from search drop and become “normalized” after implementing AI Overview.
“Google has made a clear pivot over the past five years, moving from being an index of the world’s information to an answering engine. They are trying to answer user questions as best they can within their own ecosystem.” he told Media Leader, adding that this resulted in reduced traffic potential for publishers.
A new audience strategy is needed
Despite the strength of consumer trust in its brands such as Good Food and Radio Times, Immediate, like other companies, has seen its once-reliable how-to articles and list articles become less strategic in some content areas. We need to pivot and change,” Vowles said. Particularly influenced by AI Overview.
AI Overview is becoming more popular in response to queries asking for “evergreen” information like “how to fry an egg” or “what is the best laptop for video”, which have long been reliable traffic drivers for specialty publishers. It seems to be offered more frequently.
A trade group representative told Media Leader that one specialty publisher was testing these AI briefs in niche content areas in the U.S. market and saw a 50% drop in traffic.
News outlets such as The Sun have also hinted that changes to Google’s search are having a serious impact on site traffic. News UK said in its latest financial report that The Sun’s digital services led to global monthly unique user numbers of 80 million in September, down 40% year-on-year, from 134 million in the same period last year. revealed that it had decreased.
Meanwhile, News UK reported a decline in digital ad revenue across its brands, which it attributed to “reduced traffic on some mastheads due to algorithm changes on certain platforms”.
When asked to elaborate on the specific cause of the sudden drop in traffic for The Sun and other News UK brands, the publisher declined to comment.
A spokesperson for The Sun said: “The digital landscape has experienced dramatic change over the past 12 months, with well-publicized changes to platform algorithms impacting the entire industry.” The Sun continues to innovate and invest in journalism that reaches new audiences both on and off our platforms. ”
Meanwhile, other news brands said that while the search changes had a negative impact on their traffic, they made up for it by relying on other Google products.
For example, Press Gazette reported last week that Reach, the UK’s largest publisher, had great success using Google Discover, Google’s smartphone-based content recommendation feed, to drive referral traffic.
Martin Little, director of audience transformation, said Discover’s traffic has more than compensated for the decline in traffic from standard search and is now Reach’s single largest source of traffic referrals.
“One of the many threats”
Google has indicated that AI Overview is unlikely to be provided in conjunction with news content, but it is unclear how Google defines “news”. News Media Association CEO Owen Meredith has previously warned that overviews threaten journalism’s business model because they “risk discouraging users from clicking on the original link”.
Data from Similarweb viewed by The Media Leader found that a large number of news-related queries prompted the AI’s summary response, even when the user was specifically searching for the publisher they were trying to access. These include queries such as “wsj prime rate,” which referenced the Wall Street Journal, and “Tropical Storm Helen Pass,” which related to news about Hurricane Helen in the United States.
It is not immediately clear from Similarweb’s data whether the AI summaries provided for such queries will necessarily lead to a decrease in traffic for publishers covering those articles.
Stuart Forrest, global director of SEO for Bauer Media’s publishing business, told Media Leader that while AI is a concern for publishers, it is “more of a threat than the primary threat” to search traffic. “One,” he said.
He said individuals searching for information about the U.S. presidential election can search for information from the Associated Press on a Google search without having to click on the Associated Press website or scroll down the page to see another news article. He gave an example where you can view the latest election result maps that have been licensed and cited. .
These search results, which typically feature a “box” where Google displays information at the top of the page, have become more common over the past year. Google also regularly displays what it calls “featured snippets.” This often attempts to address a user’s query without having to click a link by quoting information from the top results on the web.
