Digital publishers are facing a significant challenge that goes beyond traditional shifts in the search ecosystem. For years, publishers have relied heavily on Google for referral traffic. However, the rise of LLM-powered answers has started to reduce the need for users to click through to original sources. This trend became far more visible with Google's introduction of AI summaries, which has already resulted in noticeable drops in referral traffic (source).

 Google is unlikely to step back from AI summaries. They enhance the user experience by providing immediate answers, and for Google, the incentive to keep users within its own ecosystem is very strong. Importantly, the content indexed for search is also used for AI summaries. Publishers cannot opt out of one while staying in the other. This leaves publishers with a problematic choice: exclude their content from Google's AI summaries, but in doing so, also remove themselves from Google's search index.

The problem becomes even more severe when considering the broader ecosystem. Many other LLM-based AI platforms are also indexing publisher content and serving answers directly, but without sending traffic back to the original publishers. To make matters worse, reports indicate that AI crawlers are disregarding crawl directives intended to safeguard content from unwanted scraping (source).

Publishers are now at a crossroads. They must balance visibility in search with the protection of their content and explore new business models that can sustain them in a future where AI answers dominate user attention.

 Contact us if you'd like to explore how to manage this in the way that suits you best.