US Edition
News Sites Are Getting Crushed by Google’s New AI Tools
- Major news outlets experienced steep declines in organic search traffic through April 2025 as AI tools like chatbots replaced traditional Google searches.
- This shift resulted from Google rolling out AI features such as AI Overview and AI Mode, which favor auto-generated summaries over links, reducing referral traffic to publishers.
- TollBit reported that traffic from retrieval bots scraping content for AI models grew 49 percent in Q1 2025, with bot traffic growing 2.5 times faster than overall traffic, challenging publishers' revenue.
- Business Insider cut 21 percent of its staff due to extreme traffic drops, while The Atlantic's CEO warned that traffic from Google may drop to zero over time, demanding new business strategies.
- Industry leaders predict a long transition as AI continues to transform web traffic patterns, requiring publishers to adapt since fair compensation and detection of AI bot use remain unresolved challenges.
41 Articles
41 Articles
As consumers switch from Google Search to ChatGPT, a new kind of bot is scraping data for AI
Link URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/06/11/tollbit-ai-bot-retrieval/ Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~tech/1oka/as_consumers_switch_from_google_search_to_chatgpt_a_new_kind_of_bot_is_scraping_data_for_ai Votes: 2 Comments: 3
AI Ate Our Traffic: News Publishers Fight For Survival As Google Pulls The Plug On Clicks
The digital landscape is shifting beneath the feet of news publishers, and the tremors are being felt as devastating traffic drops. Google, once the benevolent shepherd of internet users to news sites, is transforming into an “answer engine,” and its AI-powered features are increasingly replacing traditional blue links with instant, comprehensive answers – leaving publishers […] AI Ate Our Traffic: News Publishers Fight For Survival As Google Pu…
The Seattle Times
Bioethics.com‘This is coming for everyone’: A new kind of AI bot takes over the web
People are replacing Google search with artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, a major shift that has unleashed a new kind of bot loose on the web.
WSJ: Some Publishers Are Being Crushed by Google's Turn to AI
Some websites are getting crushed by chatbots and Google's new "AI Overview" feature, as users no longer feel the need to click on links suggested by the tech giant, resulting in a sharp decline of traffic for online publishers impacted by the change.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
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