Website owners are experiencing dramatic traffic losses following Google’s introduction of AI Overviews, according to an investigation by Davey Alba and Julia Love of Bloomberg. The report, based on interviews with 25 publishers, reveals that many independent websites have seen traffic plummet by up to 70% since March 2024, disrupting the long-standing relationship between content creators and the search giant.
Charleston Crafted owner Morgan McBride, who ironically appeared in a Google advertisement celebrating how the company had helped her business grow, saw her site traffic collapse shortly after. The decline has cost her tens of thousands of dollars in lost advertising revenue.
Google has denied that AI Overviews are harming websites, stating it’s “misleading to make generalizations about the causes” of declining traffic. However, data from web-analytics firm Similarweb shows widespread drops across fashion, lifestyle, travel, DIY, home design, and cooking websites.
At a meeting with affected creators in October 2024, Google executives apologized but offered no guarantees of recovery, explaining that search had “fundamentally changed in the AI era.”
Some publishers report that Google’s AI summaries often contain inaccuracies while still reducing clicks to their sites. Others note that low-quality or AI-generated content sometimes receives higher rankings than expert content, contrary to Google’s stated quality guidelines.
Multiple website owners expressed feeling “betrayed” by Google, with some forced to shut down operations entirely. Others are abandoning their websites to focus on alternative platforms like YouTube, which is also owned by Google.