Google is getting even worse for independent sites

HouseFresh disappeared from Google Search results. Now what?

We sounded the alarm about independent publishers being demoted on Google to give way to big media sites. This is what happened next.

The end of the Googleverse

The last 25 years of Google’s history can be boiled down to a battle against the Google bomb. Is the search engine finally losing to its hijackers?

How Google is killing independent sites like ours - HouseFresh

And why you shouldn’t trust product reviews from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google.

Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse | The Walrus

As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing

Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find

"The majority of high-ranking product reviews in the result pages of commercial search engines use affiliate marketing, and significant amounts are outright SEO product review spam."

Google swears it isn’t destroying the web with AI search

Changes to Search have sent ripples across the media industry.

Google is its own worst enemy

In its bid to push AI, it’s destroying its products and trying to kill the web too

Reddit might cut ties with Google as traffic drops.

Reddit has discussed shutting off Google’s access to data used to train its Gemini AI models. Or maybe it’s just a renegotiation bluff now that its $60 million-a-year deal is coming to an end. According to The Wall Street Journal: > … with AI-generated answers to queries reducing clicks to outside websites, Reddit executives are assessing what the upside is of continuing to feed its content to Google, said the people familiar with the matter. Google Zero comes for us all, eventually. [Link: Google Was a Lifeline for Publishers. Now Some Are Thinking of Cutting It Off. | https://www.wsj.com/business/media/google-search-publishers-ai-content-0fb06e41?st=afkkxc&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink | wsj.com]

Google AI Overviews linked to 25% drop in publisher referral traffic, new data shows

The majority of Digital Content Next publisher members are seeing traffic losses from Google search between 1% and 25% due to AI Overviews.

Is Google about to destroy the web?

Google says adding more AI to its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: this era of online history is closing.

Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search

The nuclear option is gaining traction as web traffic collapses and Google refuses to negotiate with content creators

Why Google’s New AI-Saturated Search Page Will Be A Disaster

Google didn’t invent full-text search of the Internet – that honor belongs to early pioneers such as WebCrawler, Lycos and AltaVista. But for the last 25 years or so, Google has…

The Web Can Thrive Without Google’s Search Monopoly

Viable browsers and meaningful contributions to web standards can be sustained with more modest revenue streams, writes Alissa Cooper.

Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed

As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.