Ah Google Search, everyone’s favorite search engine that started out as an excellent source for Internet resources using links and is openly being turned into a service that eats everything that is in its way, even the very sites that fuel it.
A new report, cited by the Wall Street Journal, suggests that major US publishers have noticed sharp drops in organic Google Search traffic between June 2025 and June 2026.
According to the report, sites noticed decreases of organic traffic by up to 85 percent and the main reason for that appears to be AI Overviews. When Google Search displays an AI generated overview on a search results page, traffic to sites drops by about 60 percent according to the study. This leaves Discover traffic as the remaining traffic source from Google, but this comes with its own set of caveats, including a tendency for clickbait.
Major US publishers and sites, including Reddit, Politico and Business Insider, may turn to drastic measures to put an end to Google’s strategy of becoming the one and only destination on the Internet that users need.
Reddit, the Wall Street Journal reports, is considering dropping a potential renewal of its $60 million per year deal with Google. This would disallow Google from using the content published on Reddit for AI training and also prevent the company from showing Reddit content in its AI overviews.
Apart from losing the money, Reddit might also notice another drop in referrals from Google as a consequence, as it would likely no longer be listed by the AI Overviews feature.
My personal take: Google’s decisions have led to a decline in Internet blogs, at least in the tech sector. Independent owners of sites like Freeware Genius stopped publishing or pulled their sites entirely from the Internet because of Google. Now, the beneficiaries of Google’s algorithmic changes are facing a similar situation. Google is keeping the users that it used to send to these sites and now it is their business model that is in jeopardy.
Here is the outcome: Some will survive, as they may provide value that Google can’t replicate. Some will merge, others will vanish. Even big publications or sites may go down. Google might eventually notice that AI can’t generate fresh information on its own though.