News Sites are Losing Traffic, But Google And AI Are Not Solely To Blame

While Google’s algorithm updates and AI summaries grab attention, the news sites are losing traffic, but the blame does not lie solely on Google and AI.

Nearly all important U.S. news websites experienced decreased numbers of visitors in the month of July. According to PressGazette’s ranking for July among the 50 top U.S. news sites, based on Similarweb information, only six websites reported year-over-year (YoY) growth in traffic. The majority of sites experienced drop-offs in the single or double digits, which highlights the constant issues that publishers face.

Traffic Numbers Game

It is reported that the New York Times continued to be the most popular traffic source, having received 462 million visitors during July, despite an increase of 7. In the next spot, the other two were CNN, which had 323 million visits, which is down an impressive 38 percent in comparison to Fox News, which saw 249 million visitors but suffered a decrease of 26%.

Astonishingly, the steep YoY declines for publishers such as Forbes (-50%), Daily Mail (-44%), NBC News (-42%), HuffPost (-42%), Washington Post (-40%) and U.S. News (-40%).

Whereas, certain platforms bucked the trend by gaining significant rises, in which India Times rose by 46%, Substack rose by 40%, while Newsbreak added 24%.

Multiple Factors Behind Publisher Declines

Publishers from all over the world are struggling with declining traffic, but this isn’t entirely due to the generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT, as well as Google’s AI Overviews. Other structural elements are also at the helm.

For instance for instance, for instance, the BBC’s introduction of a paywall to U.S. visitors coincided with an increase of 16% YoY of visitors (down from 100 to), which pushed the site down from the 7th spot to the 12th place in the rankings. Monthly, BBC traffic slipped 15%, which was one of the biggest declines since Reuters (-24%) as well as Associated Press (-16%).

AI Is Not the Only Culprit

Barry Adams, an SEO and audience growth consultant, wrote on LinkedIn and warned against blaming AI as the primary reason for the decrease in traffic by quoting it “obvious scapegoat.” He noted that news consumption may have reached its peak in the last year, and that the market is saturated, as well as changing behaviour of users and a rise in paywalls, are all putting pressure on publishers.

Adams said:

“…From now on every click is a zero-sum contest for attention and revenue. It’ll only get harder to win online. You have to be better on every front; your content, your value proposition, your SEO, your multichannel strategy, everything needs to align,”

Google’s Growing Role in Publisher Traffic

Although overall visits are declining, Google remains the primary driving force of traffic to publishers and the main access point for users. In addition, Google Discover has overtaken traditional Search as the largest source of referrals, which is a reflection of changing patterns of discovery for users.

While direct visits and social media referred are continuing to decline, publishers are becoming more dependent on Google’s algorithm and distribution choices to ensure visibility and reach.

The rankings. Top 50 news websites in the US in July: BBC drops five places as paywall is introduced.

Bottom Line

This evolving dynamic reflects the complex challenges that news organizations face in retaining audience attention. This highlights the necessity for publishers to adapt comprehensively from content quality to multi-channel strategies in order to stay competitive in a changing digital ecosystem.