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Google Search referrals to the web have plummeted, AI links are 'less than 1%' of traffic (9to5google.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Data gathered by Chartbeat and shared by Axios reveals that, 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. That last category would be any site getting over 100,000 daily pageviews.

It’s not just Google Search either. While Search traffic dropped by 34%, traffic from Google Discover has also fallen by 15% over the past year, the report found.

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[–] 3 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Relieved to find this response below the others. Why TF would you search for a site i) whose URL you know? ii) waste space on your browser by adding the website as a search bar on your browser's menu bar? How much time do people anticipate they'll save by avoiding typing Wikipedia.org into the address field?

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    That's not what I mean. I have a keyword like ‘wik’ set to take me to Wikipedia's search, and if I type ‘wik black pus’, i get the page for that term.

    I also have an extension that shows a popup with buttons for different search engines whenever I select text on a page, and I have a similar thing on the phone for text shared from any app. Each of these methods has about twenty-seven sites configured in it. Considering that I look up things on these sites easily a dozen times a day, it's ridiculous to say that this doesn't save me time over opening each site.

    (P.S.: This workflow also allows using the keyboard for keyword-triggered search, while the search interface on some sites is getting less accommodating and assumes me mousing around.)

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago* (3 children)

    Most (if not all) modern browsers support multiple search engines which are configurable and selectable from a dropdown in the omnibar. There's no need to remember dozens of shortcuts or add a dedicated toolbar anymore.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (2 children)

    TBF the dropdown usually requires fiddling with the mouse, while keywords for search engines allow sticking with the keyboard. Since I use the sites regularly, it's no problem for me to remember the keywords.

    Any one of these methods is better than going to the site front page each time.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, fair enough. If it works, it works, and to each their own.

    The suggestion from the user I replied to, of needing a browser toolbar, did get in my craw a bit. Like what is it 2005? I don't think I've even used one since before Chrome was in beta.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Wikipedia I would never do this for, but site:reddit.com or even just adding the word Reddit to the end of my search term has been my trick to finding good information for like 15 years now. It's more useful now than ever, despite how shitty reddit has gotten. Reddit's search is terrible though and searching the same thing using Reddit's search rarely gives good results.

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