Google's AI search summaries disrupt publisher traffic
The Verge: Google’s AI search changes upended online publishing
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more about AI's impact on the web, follow Emma Roth. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started The digital publishing industry has relied on Google for a very long time. Many outlets spent time and money optimizing their webpages to show up at the top of the search engine, with the goal of getting readers t
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Google's AI search features, which display AI-generated summaries at the top of search results, have disrupted the traditional relationship between publishers and Google's search engine. For years, publishers optimized their content to rank highly on Google and drive traffic to their websites, but AI Overviews and similar features now summarize web content without guaranteeing users will click through to the original sources. Traffic to major publishers has declined significantly following these changes, with some outlets experiencing traffic losses ranging from 1 to 89 percent, while research shows people are less likely to click on links when AI summaries are displayed. This shift represents a fundamental change in how Google's search engine works and how publishers can rely on search traffic to sustain their business.
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