Tag Archive for: referral traffic

Critics accuse Google’s increasing use of AI in its search engine of taking referral traffic away from websites, but Google’s executives say the issue is a matter of quality versus quantity. 

In a recent press and Q&A event, Google’s executives argued that AI is improving the quality of search results (while largely avoiding the issue of decreasing clicks).

The session included statements from several executives, such as Jenny Cheng (Vice President and General Manager of Google’s Merchant Shopping operations), Sean Downey (President of Americas & Global Partners at Google), and Nicky Rettke (YouTube Vice President of Product Management).

Does AI Reduce Traffic To Websites?

Numerous studies have found that Google’s AI overviews have significantly reduced click-through rates to both organic and paid listings, leading to significant reductions in referral traffic. The trend has brought down CTRs for nearly every type of search, but non-branded informational searchers have been most heavily impacted since the introduction of AI overviews. 

Ahrefs, Advanced Web Ranking, Similarweb, and many others have independently verified that this trend is happening and seems to be getting worse as Google has increased how frequently it shows AI overviews. 

What Google’s Execs Have To Say

When asked about falling click-through rates in search, Google’s executives began by saying it is partially driven by an increase in follow-up searches while using AI-enhanced search. 

“What we’re seeing is people asking more questions. So they’ll ask a first question, they’ll get information, and then go and ask a different question. So they’re refining and getting more information, and then they’re making a decision of what website to go to.”

As this happens, Google seems to believe users refine exactly what they are looking for, ensuring that their clicks are more valuable. 

“When they get to a decision to click out, it’s a more highly qualified click… What we hope to see over time—and we don’t have any data to share on this—is more time spent on site, which is what we see organically in a much more highly qualified visitor for the website.”

Notably, even Google admits it cannot back up these claims with data. 

What About Ads?

While the Google executives did their best not to directly address falling referral traffic for organic content, they did claim that CTRs on ad placements are stable overall. Despite AI overviews pushing paid placements further down the page, Google says clicks remain largely unchanged. 

“When we run ads on AI overviews versus ads on standard search, we see pretty much the same level of monetization capabilities, which would indicate most factors are the same and they’re producing really the same results for advertisers to date.”

Again, however, the company declined to share any data on the issue. 

What About AI Mode?

Don’t expect anything to improve with the new wide launch of Google’s AI mode. Along with doubling down on AI features in search, this new mode, Google has made referral traffic from AI mode untrackable. 

When someone clicks through to your website from within AI mode, it is currently not being recorded in Google Search Console analytics. At best, some tools seem to be capturing when clicks occur, however, they are shown with no attribution. In most cases, however, they seem not to be registering at all. This will only serve to muddy the waters while websites deal with seeing less traffic from Google.

The bad news just keeps coming for Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter. A new report from Automattic indicates that the social network is sending less traffic for publishers compared to a year ago.

Twitter built much of its popularity on being a reliable way for publishers to drive interest and traffic to content because it allowed users to easily share and discuss the latest news and media.

As the site becomes more controversial and its user base dwindles, however, it appears to be sending less traffic to these types of links.

What The Report Says

From the first half of 2022 to the first half of 2023, traffic from X fell by an average of 24% based on a random sampling of 25 large and small publishers. The impact varied depending on the publisher, with some larger publishers taking particularly large hits to their traffic. 

Among the publishers that saw the biggest drops in referral traffic from X were Buzzfeed (-70%), Reuters (-67%), The Washington Post (-42%), CNN (-39%) and Fox News (-39%).

Not a New Trend

It would be easy to put all the blame on Elon Musk’s recent ownership of the social network. Along with the rebrand to X, Musk has made sweeping changes to how the platform functions including reducing moderation, introducing paid verification services, and unbanning prominent controversial figures. 

However, this is just the latest plunge in a years-long pattern of dwindling referral traffic. 

Twitter has been gradually delivering less traffic to publishers since 2018, though the pattern appears to have accelerated in the last year. 

Of course, this trend hasn’t hit all publishers. Some have even reported seeing more referral traffic this year than in the past. Still, it would be wise for publishers to keep an eye on their referral traffic and potentially make plans for finding new ways to drive traffic if the pattern continues.

Search engines and social media are battling for the top spot as the leading source of referral traffic to publishers on the web. Recent accounts suggested that social media may be taking the lead.

However new data from Parse.ly, a content analytics platform that counts Reuters, Mashable, Slate, and The Next Web among its many clients, shows that search has retaken the lead from social media as the top source of referral traffic in March of this year.

parsely-search-social-referrers

Parse.ly’s publishers saw 32.8 percent of its traffic coming from search in March, compared to 31.2 percent from social media. That is the exact reverse of results from data, when data showed social traffic outdid search 32 to 30 percent.

Overall the trends still favor social media, despite the good month for search in March. If you look at reports from further back, it becomes clear that search has been steadily losing ground. In October 2013, Parse.ly reported search was by far the dominant source of traffic at 36 percent, compared to only 22 percent for social.

parsely-oct2013

Google sites were still the No. 1 overall source of traffic for the analytics platform’s clients during the most recent reporting period, with Facebook coming in second. Those two net giants were significantly higher sources than any other individual sites.