A Google search for the subject of a story is much less likely to click on that page, according to Chartbeat data compiled in a new report for the University of Oxford’s Writers’ Institute for the Study of Journalism.
The firm’s analysis of traffic metrics from 2,756 news sites worldwide, including 797 in the US, shows a painful drop in Google search traffic over the past year: 33% worldwide and 38% in the US. Much of that drop, especially outside the US, came after Google started AI review search results that provide a software-generated, multi-paragraph answer, often requiring you to click overtime to see links to Google-generated sources for that answer.
News media trade group Digital Context saw an even worse decline in August, when it reported a 10 percent drop in Google search traffic to member sites.
In the Reuters Institute report, senior research associate Nick Newman wrote that “it’s unclear how much of this is AI review,” and observed that not all news sites may experience the same shortfall. A chart for US traffic shows the increase in Google’s AI search results in the months since its launch.
“Questions around ‘hard news’ articles are largely exempt from reviews at Google, perhaps because of so-called fraud,” he wrote. “Publishers who specialize in lifestyle or utility content such as weather, TV guides, or horoscopes are more likely to be affected.”
Asked for comment, Google sent a statement saying its data did not reflect the dramatic traffic drops in the report again, questioning Chartbeat’s selection of those sites, and calling out an August report by the firm that showed stable search traffic to news sites.
Google also noted the absence of click-through data on Google News, which is detailed in the fine print below each chart in the study, and pointed to the company’s recent addition of allowing web users to select “preferred sources” in Google News and its efforts to increase the visibility of links in A Infinite results.
But Chartbeat data in this new report also shows serious slides in traffic from Google Discover, the recommended links screen you’ll see by swiping left to right on an Android phone: a 21% drop in the US and 29% worldwide. And since Google Discover now drives more traffic than regular Google search, according to Chartbeat’s metrics — 13% of worldwide referral traffic, compared to 7.3% for Google Search — it’s also troubling.
Trends in referral traffic from Facebook and X should make newsrooms even more nervous. Since May 2023, Chartbeat has found that Facebook traffic in the US has fallen by 43% and 35% worldwide, with X-referrals falling even faster, to 46% and 45% worldwide in the States.
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Confusingly, news sites Chartbeat have seen more referrals from these platforms over the past year alone, especially in the US: 23% growth for Facebook, 29% for X.
The Reuters Institute also questioned a large contingent of digital media executives about their plans, and they were not interested in plugging in with social sites or Google search in any way. Questions about whether they would put more or less effort into different platforms yielded a net score of -23 for Facebook, -25 for Google Search, and -52 for X.
Facebook still has a massive audience, but newsroom managers have reasons not to rely on it after more than a decade of bait-and-switch behavior: The social network has spawned new features and services for publishers and then killed them off.
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X, meanwhile, has seen its reach for years. Elon Musk’s previous Twitter takeover hasn’t slowed it down, but it has led to hostile policies, such as taking down posts with links or temporarily hiding headlines from link previews.
The institute’s report says that these newsroom executives plan to put more effort into YouTube, AI platforms, and TechTalk instead, with net scores of +74, +61, and +56. Publishers also appear cautiously optimistic about the monetization potential of licensing their content to AI platforms, with 20% expecting “substantial” revenues from these deals and 49% expecting “modest” revenues.
The institute’s report doesn’t just outline the economic and technological threats to newsrooms. He also cited President Trump and other right-wing politicians’ swift condemnation of media organizations deemed biased or fake. In Trump’s case, these include high-profile lawsuits against the likes of CBS and the BBC.
Had the document been published on Wednesday instead of Monday, it would have noted a new addition to Trump’s campaign against newsrooms: the FBI’s unprecedented search and seizure on Wednesday. The Washington Post Personal and work laptops, phones and smartwatches of reporter Hannah Nitinson as part of an investigation into the alleged leak.
But the report ends on a somewhat optimistic note, citing the AI sloppiness and toxic social media versus the success of some publishers in creating subscription models and the value of quality content: “This year’s survey shows that news executives recognize the challenges ahead and are ready for the fight.”
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