Top news sites suffer drastic drop in web traffic since Google added AI search — with some plunging 40%
Of the top 50 news domains, 37 suffered year-over-year traffic declines after the launch of Google's AI Overviews last May, according to SimilarWeb.
The drastic dropoff comes despite headline-grabbing events that included the assassination attempt on Donald Trump last summer, his stunning election victory over Kamala Harris a few months later and the turmoil over the new president's tariff policies.
'The data absolutely shows the new AI products Google has announced are affecting news publishers' traffic,' Danielle Coffey, President and CEO of News/Media Alliance, told The Post on Tuesday.
3 Google's generative artificial intelligence functions continue to have a devastating impact on publishers, according to the latest data.
SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
'On top of all the SEO changes that have decreased traffic recently in traditional search, this is certain to negatively impact our ability to invest in quality journalism,' added Coffey, whose nonprofit trade association represents more than 2,200 news organizations.
Forbes and HuffPost were the hardest hit, each losing 40% of their traffic, while DailyMail.com plunged 32% and CNN.com fell 28%, according to SimilarWeb.
The Post and sister publication Wall Street Journal suffered declines of 27% and 17%, respectively, the data showed. Fox News.com fell 24%.
Fox News parent Fox Corp. and The Post parent News Corp share common ownership.
ComScore, which uses a different methodology from SimilarWeb to track traffic, found that NYPost Network — which includes nypost.com and affiliated properties such as Decider and Page Six — drew 433 million page views in June 2024 before falling to 381 million for May 2025, a loss of 12%.
3 CNN.com suffered one of the steepest drops, with traffic down 28% year-over-year to 311.7 million visits, according to Similarweb.
SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/24029631
Meanwhile, WSJ.com — part of News Corp-owned Dow Jones — and Fox News.com both posted slight increases over the same time frame, one of the few publications to gain traffic, according to ComScore.
Left-leaning rivals the New York Times and The Washington Post dipped 0.7% and 6%, respectively, ComScore found.
Publication that saw the biggest gains, according to SimilarWeb, included MensJournal.com (+415%), CoolDown.com (+96%) and Indiatimes.com (+77%).
A Google spokesperson denied that AI push was to blame for the cratering traffic.
3 Google's AI model, Gemini is powering tools such as AI Mode, which negate the need for users to visit external sites.
Gado via Getty Images
'More than any other company, Google prioritizes sending traffic to the web, and we continue to send billions of clicks to websites every day,' the rep told The Post on Tuesday.
'We've seen many inaccurate claims about traffic from Search, often based on speculative or incomplete information, questionable methodology, or data that predates AI Overviews. New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for businesses and content to be discovered.'
The company added that there are known limitations to SimilarWeb's dataset since it only looks at desktop and mobile web, not app activity.
Google's AI Overviews — automated summaries powered by its Gemini model — appear at the top of results pages and directly answer user queries, often preempting the need for users to go to the source of the information.
Since the rollout of AI Overviews, many publishers have reported steep declines in both traffic and click-through rates (CTR). According to multiple studies, the average CTR for the top organic result on queries that trigger AI Overviews plummeted from 7.3% in March 2024 to just 2.6% by March 2025.
Google also recently rolled out AI Mode — an advanced search experience that delivers detailed, conversational answers to complex queries.
Despite previously stating that AI Overviews would not appear for 'hard news topics' due to concerns over freshness and factuality, an AIO box appeared atop search results for 'anne burrell death' shortly after the story broke.
A recent Google document now states that AI Overviews will appear when they add value and the system has high confidence in the response, though efforts are being made to exclude sensitive or dangerous topics.
The company claimed that overall visits to the web and traffic from organic search have increased year-over-year in aggregate, and that AI Overviews are designed to enhance the user experience by surfacing more links from a broader range of sources.
Google added that publishers can experience traffic fluctuations for many reasons unrelated to AI — including seasonal demand, shifting user preferences and regular algorithm updates.
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