AI referrals to news websites up by 770% since June 2024: Report

Indian Express

9 hours ago

As AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity become increasingly popular for looking up information on the internet, concerns have grown, particularly among news publishers, about a potential collapse in online traffic to their websites. But could these fears be overstated?
Research based on data analytics and user surveys have so far indicated mixed results, with some studies suggesting notable drops in traffic while others hint at minimal impact.
New data from web traffic and analytics firm Similarweb shows that the number of referrals from AI platforms to news and media websites has increased by 770 per cent since June 2024, according to a report by TechCrunch.
Over 1.13 billion referrals to the top 1,000 websites globally came from AI platforms in June this year, up by 357 per cent from the year-ago period. OpenAI's ChatGPT accounted for a majority (80 per cent) of the AI referrals to the top 1,000 websites, as per the report.
However, Google Search continues to be the dominant source of referral traffic as it accounted for 191 billion referrals to these sites during the same period.
An AI referral is when platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Perplexity, Claude, and Liner direct a user to a specific website or domain. This is typically done through citations or URLs shown within AI-generated responses to user queries.
Some of the news websites that saw the highest volume of AI referrals in June 2025 are:
– Yahoo: 2.3 million
– Yahoo Japan: 1.9 million
– Reuters: 1.8 million
– The Guardian: 1.7 million
– India Times: 1.2 million
– Business Insider: 1 million
News websites such as The New York Times do not tend to rank high as they block access to AI platforms.
Based on the analysis by Similarweb, AI platforms are also driving referral traffic to websites in other categories such as e-commerce, science and education, tech, search, and social media, arts and entertainment, business, etc.
Some of the tech and social media websites that saw the highest volume of AI referrals in June 2025 are:
– Google: 53.1 million
– Reddit: 11.1 million
– Facebook: 11 million
– Github: 7.4 million
– Microsoft: 5.1 million
– Canva: 5 million
– Instagram: 4.7 million
– LinkedIn: 4.4 million
– Bing: 3.1 million
– Pinterest: 2.5 million
Among e-commerce sites, Amazon led the pack with 4.5 million AI referrals in June this year, followed by Etsy (2 million AI referrals) and eBay (1.8 million AI referrals) during the same period.
While these numbers paint a positive picture, other studies have found that features such as AI Overviews in Google Search are killing traffic to news and other sites. A recent survey of 900 Google users in the US by Pew Research Center found that those who encountered an AI Overview only clicked on a website link eight per cent of the time.
Meanwhile, users who were not shown an AI Overview were 15 per cent more likely to click on relevant website links, as per the study.