Search engine traffic is down across the web, with some small websites seeing a 60% drop.
It has been pointed out that
Exclusive: Small publishers hit hardest by search traffic declines
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/17/chartbeat-search-traffic-ai-chatbots
Search Referral Traffic Down 60% For Small Publishers, Data Shows
In June 2025, research firm SimilarWeb reported a significant decrease in traffic from Google to news sites.
Google search traffic to news sites has plummeted, and the introduction of 'AI-generated summaries' is expected to bring about a further crisis - GIGAZINE
According to a report by the news site Axios, citing data from data analytics firm Chartbeat , search engine traffic has decreased by 22% for large publishers with over 100,000 page views per day, by 47% for medium-sized publishers with 10,000 to 100,000 page views per day, and by 60% for small publishers over the past two years.
In particular, page views from Google Search and Google Discover, the two major sources of search traffic, decreased by 34% and 15% respectively during the year from December 2024 to December 2025.
On the other hand, there has been an increase in traffic due to AI-driven search experiences such as Google's 'AI-driven summaries' and the impact of chatbots, with traffic via ChatGPT increasing by more than 200%. However, this still accounts for less than 1% of a publisher's total page views, so it is far from offsetting the decline in search traffic.
Furthermore, while news sites and media websites receive a lot of traffic from AI platforms, the number of engagements per article is low, suggesting that users may verify facts and context, but do not require in-depth analysis.
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in Note, Posted by logc_nt