Newzdash’s data shows that Google is sending less traffic to news publishers through Google Web Search, but those same publishers are getting good traffic through Google Discover. The report is based on analyzing 8.1 billion clicks on a number of news publishers on Google Web Console and comparing data from 2023 with data from 2024.
John Shehta, founder of Newzdash, shared data on X that shows that Google Web Search saw a 10-point drop in traffic from news publishers, while news publishers saw a 14-point increase on Google Discover. The drop in Google Web Search traffic can be attributed to the rise of AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. However, another study suggests that Google still dominates the search market despite competition from several AI search engines.
News publishers’ traffic on Google Discover increased by 14%, from 41.6% to 55.6%. News publishers’ traffic on Google Web Search, on the other hand, decreased from 46.5% to 36%. Other search types such as video search, Google News and Google Image all saw a decline. Traffic on Google News decreased from 7.3% to 6.0%. The question is whether Google Discover is reliable in terms of traffic or not. Experts doubt it.
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