Google Search referrals to the web have plummeted, AI links are 'less than 1%' of traffic

"Over the past year, Google Search traffic to publishers across the broader web have fallen drastically, and proportionally more so for smaller websites. Referral traffic from Google apparently fell by 60% for "small publishers," while "medium publishers" (those with between 10,000-100,000 daily pageviews) saw a drop of 47%. "Large publishers," meanwhile, saw a 22% drop."

"While many AI products, including Google's own, have improved how they surface source links to the rest of the web, this report found that "chatbots still account for less than 1% of all publisher page view referrals." And that's an improvement. Apparently, ChatGPT referrals grew by over 200% over the course of 2025."

"News and media websites receive the highest overall number of page views from AI platforms, but with the "lowest engagement," seemingly as users only visit the source links to fact-check the notoriously unreliable AI results. The report also brought out that "email, apps and instant messages" are a growing source of referral traffic."

Google Search traffic to publishers has declined sharply across the web, with small publishers experiencing a 60% drop, medium publishers losing 47%, and large publishers down 22%. Google Discover traffic fell 15% over the same period. Despite improvements in how AI products surface source links, chatbots account for less than 1% of all publisher page view referrals, though ChatGPT referrals grew over 200% in 2025. News and media websites receive the most AI chatbot traffic but with lowest engagement, as users primarily visit to fact-check unreliable results. Email, apps, and instant messages are growing referral sources, while overall traffic dropped 6% between 2024 and 2025.

Read at 9to5Google