Travel website founder Nate Hake claims Google deliberately destroyed thousands of independent publishers to make room for AI-powered search features. In a 34-page letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Hake details how his site Travel Lemming lost over 95% of its Google search traffic following algorithm updates in late 2023 and early 2024.
Hake argues these updates were not content-based improvements but a strategic demolition of small publishers. While Google promised to reward “content by people, for people,” the company quietly removed this phrase from its guidelines in September 2023, the same day it launched devastating algorithm changes.
The timing appears significant. Just two weeks after completing these updates in April 2024, Google rolled out AI Overviews, which display AI-generated summaries directly in search results. This reduces clicks to original websites by 15% to 55%, according to independent studies cited by Hake.
Google invited Hake and 19 other affected publishers to its headquarters in October 2024, where executives apologized and admitted the shadowbans were not the publishers’ fault. However, Google representatives said search had permanently changed with AI and traffic might never return.
The algorithm changes disproportionately affected independent sites while sparing large media corporations. When major publishers violate Google’s policies, they receive manual penalties with appeal processes. Independent sites face algorithmic shadowbans with no recourse.
Meanwhile, Reddit experienced unprecedented growth in Google search visibility during the same period. The social media platform signed a $60 million annual AI licensing deal with Google in February 2024, shortly before its successful IPO.
Hake describes Google’s strategy as building an “information cartel” where the company controls both questions and answers. Google executive Noam Shazeer recently stated that “organizing information is clearly a trillion-dollar opportunity, but a trillion dollars is not cool anymore. What’s cool is a quadrillion dollars.”
The changes have led to massive consolidation, with nearly half of Google’s traffic now going to just a few hundred websites owned by 16 venture capital-backed media companies. Independent publishers who invested heavily in human-created content found themselves eliminated regardless of quality.
Google’s AI Overviews now serve 1.5 billion users, though users did not choose this feature. The company leveraged its search monopoly to force AI integration across its platform.
Hake warns that Google’s control over information sources could extend to controlling public opinion on critical issues including healthcare, politics, and personal decisions. He recommends users switch to alternative search engines and support independent publishers directly.
The Federal Trade Commission requested public comments on technology platform censorship, prompting Hake’s detailed account of what he calls systematic censorship disguised as algorithm improvements.