"It's been accepted wisdom that traditional publishers play a pivotal role in the digital media landscape, with standout editorial content serving as a rich source of premium inventory for advertisers. But that view is increasingly being challenged by the growing impact of AI search, whether it's Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Google AI Overviews. Only last month, Google expanded AI mode to more than 40 new countries and 35 new languages."
"Simple steps include marking content with copyright notices and clearly stating in the terms of service that scraping content for AI training is prohibited. Other useful tools include Meta tags and robots.txt, which inform bots which content to avoid. Going further than this, publishers can utilize licensing and revenue-sharing deals, allowing them to make a profit from how AI search companies use their content."
AI-driven search tools such as Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google AI Overviews are reducing referral traffic to traditional publishers, with Google AI expansion into 40+ countries and 35 languages accelerating the effect. Google controls about 90% of the search market, and AI Overviews have been linked to a roughly 25% decline in publisher referrals. Publishers can protect content value by marking copyright, forbidding scraping in terms of service, and using meta tags and robots.txt to guide bots. Licensing and revenue-sharing agreements can monetize AI access. Tools such as Cloudflare's digital tollbooth and marketplaces like Human Native AI enable charging crawlers and brokering deals. Publishers should leverage quality content, data, brand safety, and user experience to mitigate traffic loss.
Read at The Drum
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