“Armagedddon has arrived for online news organizations,” writes The Wall Street Journal Given that chatbots replace Google searches, eliminating the need to click on the blue links of the media sites. As a result, the traffic that publishers have relied for years collapses.
The traffic coming from Google version of the desktop version and mobile devices of the Huffpost site has decreased just over the past three years, and at The Washington Post, almost as much, according to the Digital Market analysis company.
Business Insider fired around 21% of the staff last month, a measure that the general director Barbara Peng described as necessary for the online publication to “resist the extreme traffic decreases outside our control.”
The traffic brought in Business Insider from Google searches decreased by 55% between April 2022 and April 2025, according to data from similarweb.
In a general meeting of the company from the beginning of this year, Nicholas Thompson, the general manager of The Atlantic, said he must start from the premise that Google traffic will drop to zero and that a business model is needed.
“You have overviews” from Google kills traffic to certain items
The introduction last year by Google of the “AI overviews” function-which summarizes the search results at the top of the page-has dramatically affected traffic to articles containing tour guides and medical tips, but also to product review sites.
It is expected that launch in the US last month, of “Google Ai Mode” – an effort to compete directly with services such as Chatgpt – to cause an even stronger impact. “Ai mode” answers users' questions in a chatbot style conversation, offering much less links.
“Google turns from a search engine into a response engine,” Thompson said in an interview for The Wall Street Journal. “We have to develop new strategies,” he said.
The accelerated development of the answers without clicks in the search results “is a serious threat to journalism and should not be underestimated”, warns William Lewis, the publisher and general manager of The Washington Post. Lewis is the former CEO of The Wall Street Journal.
According to him, The Washington Post “acts with urgency” to connect with previously neglected audiences, to follow new sources of income and to prepare for a “post-building era”.
Google gives assurances that he does not want to replace the press
At the New York Times, the share of traffic from Google searches fell to 36.5% in April 2025, compared to almost 44% three years ago, according to similarweb.
Google representatives said they remain “employed” in the direction of sending traffic to the web and that users who click on links after seeing “you overviews” generally spend more time on those sites. The online search giant also said it promotes links to news sites and does not necessarily display “you overviews” when users are looking for topical news.
However, the searches for content included in older articles or in lifestyle materials can generate such summaries.
Press publishers have been affected by technologies from the beginning of the Internet.
Digital news decimated printed publications, which previously generated consistent revenues from ads, advertising and subscriptions.
Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have long directed online traffic to publications, but eventually moved away from the priority given to the news. The search was a constant traffic engine for more than a decade, despite some turbulence caused by the adjustments made to the strong Google algorithm.
Now, the generative artificial intelligence completely rewrites how the Internet is used.
How to adapt the news sites: “is the last drop”
“You have not the element that changes everything, but it will be from now on. It is the last drop,” says Neil Vogel, the general manager of Dotdash Meredith, who owns brands like People and Southern Living.
When Dotdash merged with Meredith in 2021, Google searches represented about 60% of the company's traffic, Vogel said. Today, it is about a third. The total traffic is increasing, due to efforts such as the drafting of informative bulletins and the “Mycoreps” service, to save the culinary recipes.
Many news sites were already experiencing gloomy trends, such as lowering public confidence and fierce competition. With the reduction of search traffic, they place an even greater emphasis on direct connection with readers through initiatives such as live conferences.
The Atlantic works to strengthen the relationship with readers through an improved application, several editions of the printed magazine and an increased investment in events, Thompson said in a recent interview. The company has announced that revenues from subscriptions and advertising are increasing.
The directors of Politico and Business Insider – both owned by Axel Springer – have also stressed the importance of public involvement and connecting with readers.
A serious threat to the basic activity of Google
While publishers are trying to cope with the changes you bring in the field of searches, they also look for ways to protect their materials protected by copyright. Large language models underlying the new generation of chatbotes are trained on web data, including news articles.
Some media companies have started processes against AI startups, while signed licensing agreements with others. The New York Times, for example, sued Openai and Microsoft for copyright violation and recently announced an AI AMazon licensing agreement.
The parent company of Wall Street Journal, News Corp, has a content agreement with Openai and a process against Perplexity.
Meanwhile, the race of “armor” with generatively becomes a serious threat to Google's basic activity: searches.
Although Google said he noticed an increase in the total number of searches on Apple devices, an Apple director said in court last month that the number of Google searches in Safari – Apple's browser – recently dropped for the first time in two decades.
Photo article: Nadeesha Gamage | Dreamstime.com.
