In a striking revelation, news websites have experienced a significant drop in traffic originating from Google searches, with a decline of 33% globally and an even steeper 38% within the United States over the past year. This information comes from a study conducted by Chartbeat, which analyzed traffic data from 2,756 news sites worldwide, including 797 located in the U.S.
The decline in visitors is closely tied to Google”s implementation of AI Overview search results. These AI-generated summaries appear prominently at the top of search results, providing users with synthesized information. As a result, many users find themselves clicking through multiple links just to reach the original sources of the information displayed.
This significant drop in traffic has outpaced findings from another industry group, Digital Context Next, which reported a more modest 10% decline in traffic to their member websites. Nic Newman, a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute, indicated that the exact connection between the traffic loss and AI overviews remains uncertain. He noted that different types of news sites experience varying impacts from these changes.
Interestingly, U.S. traffic initially saw increases following the introduction of AI search features. However, Newman pointed out that Google has largely avoided applying AI overviews to hard news topics, potentially to mitigate the risk of disseminating inaccurate information, often referred to as “hallucinations.” News sites focusing on lifestyle topics, such as weather updates or entertainment schedules, appear more vulnerable to this traffic decline.
In response to the findings, Google has disputed the report, claiming that their internal data does not reflect the drastic declines outlined by Chartbeat. The tech giant raised questions about the sample of websites chosen for the study and referenced a previous report from August that indicated stable search traffic to news sites. Furthermore, Google highlighted that the study omitted data from Google News, a critical traffic source.
Google also mentioned recent updates aimed at enhancing user experience, including a feature that allows users to select Preferred Sources in Google News and efforts to increase link visibility within AI-generated results.
Beyond Google, social media traffic has faced similar declines. According to Chartbeat”s data, traffic from Google Discover has diminished by 21% globally and 29% in the U.S. This is particularly noteworthy as Google Discover now directs more visitors to news sites than traditional Google searches, accounting for 13% of referral traffic compared to 7.3% from search.
Social media platforms have not been immune to these trends either. Since May 2023, traffic originating from Facebook has fallen by 43% worldwide and 35% in the U.S., while X has seen an even steeper decline, with traffic decreasing by 46% globally and 45% in the United States. These statistics underscore the challenges facing newsrooms that rely on external platforms for audience engagement.
