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Are Publishers Ditching Google?
Maybe not
Reportedly, several major publishers are considering opting out of Google Search.
Why It Hurts: Just a couple of years ago, a publisher deciding to leave Google Search was unthinkable — it’s the primary way the world surfaces information and discovers news outlets. Oh, and it’s also their biggest traffic and revenue driver. But AI has totally disrupted that paradigm, and Google itself has seemingly blurred the line between Search SEO and AI scraping.
Behind The Decision: Since Google uses a single web crawler to index sites for Search and train its AI models, publishers are starting to feel they have little choice but to opt out of the web giant’s ecosystem entirely, per AdWeek.
After hearing feedback from customers, Cloudflare — which hosts about a fifth of the world’s websites — told Google it will let sites block “multi-purpose crawlers” on ad-supported pages starting September 15.
Newsletter and website platform Beehiiv — which TFP uses — also announced it will let publishers block those crawlers.
Several publishers are discussing using Cloudflare and Beehiiv’s new tools. One of the few to go public is USA Today Inc., which says it can already offset the loss of Google traffic with newsletters, social media, and events.
Final Click: Why are publishers considering the nuclear option with Google? They want to be properly compensated for access to their content, of course. The problem is that Google doesn’t offer licensing agreements like AI competitors OpenAI and Anthropic. Granted, neither of those companies also operates the world’s leading search engine — something that gives Google significantly more leverage in negotiations with publishers.
Google, for its part, says it has given publishers more control over how the company accesses their sites, including an AI opt-out tool, Google Extended, and Search Console controls for limited generative AI training. Still, the consensus among publishers is that those options simply aren’t enough.
Prediction: As Google Search risks losing some high-quality publishers over AI use, the open web could start to degrade in value… possibly leaving trusted curation through newsletters and social media as the best way to stay informed.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.