Google Search has been sending 25 percentage points less traffic to news publishers over the past two years, according to the folks over at Newzdash. In 2023, Google Web Search made up over 51% of traffic from Google surfaces to news publishers; that number is now down to 27%.
Instead, news publishers are depending on the super risky Google Discover feed to send traffic. Where now, news publishers get 67.5% of their traffic from, when it was only 37% two years ago.
This chart below was posted by John Shehata on LinkedIn who showed the Google traffic distribution by Google surface to news publishers over the past few years. The chart is scary, here it is:
Google Discover, for many publishers, can be super hit or miss. And it is just a scary place to try to get consistent and dependable, and more so, targeted traffic from.
John said this is based on an analysis of "over 400 news publishers worldwide by NewzDash confirms that Google Discover is now the undisputed leader in traffic distribution." "Google Discover's share has nearly doubled in two years, climbing from 37.03% in 2023 to 67.51% today," he wrote but "Traditional Web Search has plummeted from 51.10% to just 27.42% over the same period," he added.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
