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https://www.computerworld.com/article/4065060/does-google-want-to-kill-the-web.html>
"Google hasn’t said it wants to kill the web, of course. Some of you might be
asking, “What the heck are you smoking!?” that I’d even entertain such a
question. After all, the company has built its core business around the web.
But if you take a closer look at its recent actions, you might wonder if I’m
onto something.
Let’s start with Google rolling out AI-powered features in its flagship search
app. AI Overviews, which began rolling out in May 2024, provide an AI-generated
summary of search results at the top of Google search pages, and AI Mode,
introduced in May 2025, is an alternative search interface built around
conversations with Google’s Gemini chatbot.
These features have led to a dramatic drop in web traffic, with some sites
reportedly losing 30% to 40% of their Google-driven visits in 2024 and 2025.
That kind of traffic drop is a site killer, whether you’re a publisher seeking
readers or a retailer selling widgets.
Now, Liz Reid, a VP and head of Search at Google, will tell you that’s
nonsense, that “overall traffic to sites is relatively stable.” Further, she
claims, the new and improved AI Google is “sending slightly more quality clicks
to websites.” And Nick Fox, Google’s Senior VP of Knowledge, recently said,
“from our point of view, the web is thriving.”
Isn’t that nice? Please. Stop trying to con me. I see the numbers, and they’re
falling faster than an airborne trooper whose parachute just failed.
Similarweb, which measures traffic to over 100 million web domains, estimates a
5% decline in worldwide traffic from search engines from June 2024 to June
2025,
The Economist reported, with certain types of sites, such as science,
education, and health sites, taking a harder traffic hit.
And Digital Content Next, a trade association of content companies, whose
members include
The New York Times,
Condé Nast, and
Vox, found that
referral traffic dropped by as much as 25% in May and June alone.
Some sites are seeing far sharper declines. Neil Vogel, head of People Inc.
(formerly Dotdash Meredith), which publishes
People,
Travel + Leisure,
Investopedia, and many other publications, told
The Economist that before
AI came along, more than 60% of its traffic came from Google. Today, it’s in
the mid-30s and dropping fast. Vogel accuses Google of “stealing our content to
compete with us.”
What does that mean? Digital marketer Azhar Ahmed explained on Reddit, “AI
Overviews push actual links down the page. AI Mode barely includes them at
all.” So “instead of sending you to websites, Google now encourages follow-up
prompts inside its own tools.” This means fewer clicks and less traffic for
content sites. By cannibalizing the web’s content and repacking it as Google
answers, Google is starving the open web."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
