Happy New Year, and thank you for your continued support of GIGAZINE this year.

Happy New Year to all our devoted GIGAZINE readers! It's now January 1, 2026! We hope you will continue to support GIGAZINE this year! Pekorinrin!

The editorial team at GIGAZINE also wants a New Year's gift, so if you send them something from the 'Amazon Wish List' , the editor-in-chief will jump for joy!

GIGAZINE editorial department's wish list
https://www.amazon.co.jp/hz/wishlist/ls/378VT986Z3V8T?sort=custom

Also, starting January 1st, a banner requesting donations will be displayed at the top of GIGAZINE, exclusively for those who have enabled ad blocking. The reason is that GIGAZINE is in dire straits. The unit price of advertising revenue has continued to fall steadily throughout the year leading up to 2025, to an unimaginable extent. Server fees have also been automatically increasing due to the yen-dollar exchange rate, putting the site in a similar dire straits.

So... my goal for this year is very simple.

'Let's increase sales!'

That's all there is to it.

First of all, I haven't written about it yet because it was so bad, but I spoke at a Google search event last November. My original intention was to complain to the Google staff, 'Damn it! GIGAZINE's impressions are high, but our ad rates keep dropping, so our revenue is steadily declining! Are you kidding me?' However, in reality, other sites and media outlets were in a state of crisis so dire that we, the GIGAZINE editorial team, couldn't even come close. Things were happening everywhere, like 'the number of referrals from Google search results has plummeted to almost zero,' and it was truly a big deal.

First of all, Google ads used to generate revenue when clicked. However, Google itself seems to be struggling in various ways, and has now switched to a system where revenue is generated when ads are viewed and impressions are generated. As a result, the system that supported other media, where new readers coming from Google search click on ads and generate revenue, is collapsing one after another. In addition, Google's 'AI Overview' and 'AI Summary' features have led to a sharp decline in referrals from the top-ranked phrase in Google search results. Meanwhile, GIGAZINE never originally had a top-ranked phrase in Google search results, and its main referrals are third- or fifth-ranked phrases. Therefore, we are not heavily reliant on referrals from Google, and our structure allows us to have a very large number of 'regular readers.' As a result, even regular readers who previously never clicked on ads can now generate revenue simply by 'reading articles.' While we remain in a major crisis, we still have a greater chance of survival than other media, and the key to this lies in the hands of our readers!

If you don't have an ad blocker but would like to donate to GIGAZINE and support us financially, please use the donation banner that is always displayed at the top of the following pages! The names of those who donated are also displayed!

Donate here↓
https://gigazine.net/news/about/

Well then, I look forward to working with you again this year!