Major publishers consider blocking Googlebot as AI search slashes traffic

Several major publishers are considering blocking Google's search crawler after seeing sharp declines in traffic they attribute to the company's AI-generated search summaries, known as AI Overviews.

According to The Wall Street Journal, People Inc. and Reuters are among the companies seriously weighing the move for their consumer news products.

Publishers argue that AI Overviews are replacing the click. Instead of opening the original article, users often get the answer directly in Google Search. According to Semrush, organic Google Search traffic to USA Today's U.S. site fell nearly 50% in the year ending June 2026. Business Insider saw traffic drop by more than 85%, while CNN and Politico lost around 25% and 23%, respectively. Gannett CEO Mike Reed said it was time to say "enough is enough."

The problem is that, until recently, publishers couldn't opt out of AI features without sacrificing their visibility in Google Search. To appear in traditional search results, websites have to allow Googlebot to crawl their pages — and that same content is also used to generate AI Overviews.

Google-Extended only prevents content from being used to train Gemini models. It does not stop that content from appearing in AI-generated search responses. Blocking Googlebot entirely, meanwhile, effectively removes a website from Google Search altogether — a significant risk given Google's more than 90% share of the search market. That dependency has long left publishers with little leverage.

In June 2026, Google introduced a new Search Console setting that allows publishers to exclude their content from AI Overviews and AI Mode without affecting their rankings in traditional search. Google maintains that its AI features still drive billions of clicks to websites every week, help publishers reach new audiences, and notes that it already pays more than 200 publishers for access to their content.

Even so, the dispute continues to escalate. Penske Media, the publisher of Rolling Stone, Variety, and Deadline, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google. The European Publishers Council has lodged a complaint with the European Commission, while the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has required Google to provide publishers with clearer opt-out mechanisms. Multiple industry surveys suggest that around one-third of publishers are prepared to block Google's AI features as soon as they can do so without losing their traditional search traffic.