For months, Google has maintained that the web is “thriving,” AI isn’t tanking traffic, and its search engine is sending people to a wider variety of websites than ever. But in a court filing from last week, Google admitted that “the open web is already in rapid decline,” as spotted earlier by Jason Kint and reported on by Search Engine Roundtable.
Google submitted the filing ahead of another trial that will determine how it will address its monopoly in the advertising technology business. The US Department of Justice recommends that Google break up its advertising business, but the company argues in the filing that this isn’t ideal because it would “only accelerate” the decline of the open web, “harming publishers who currently rely on open-web display advertising revenue.”
The statement sharply contrasts Google’s recent narrative about the health of search on the web. Google has a clear incentive to make itself appear weaker or less monopolistic in the courtroom, but its admission reflects a reality many publishers are going through. Several digital publishers and independent website owners have reported experiencing a decline in traffic following changes to Google Search’s algorithm and the rise of AI chatbots.
In an emailed statement to The Verge, Google spokesperson Jackie Berté said the statement is “one cherry-picked line that misrepresents” the company’s legal filing. “It’s clear from the preceding sentence that we’re referring to ‘open-web display advertising’ and not the open web as a whole,” Berté said. “We are pointing out the obvious: that investments in non-open web display advertising like connected TV and retail media are growing at the expense of those in open web display advertising.”
When asked about changes to web traffic during an episode of Decoder in May, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is “definitely sending traffic to a wider range of sources and publishers” following the rollout of AI search tools.
Nick Fox, Google’s senior vice president of knowledge, similarly defended Google against claims that changes to search are impacting web traffic. “From our point of view, the web is thriving,” Fox said on an episode of the AI Inside podcast. In the wake of a report from Pew Research, which said people are “less likely” to click on links when presented with Google’s AI Overview, Google Search head Liz Reid claimed that click volume has remained “relatively stable” when compared to the same time last year, adding that Google continues to “send billions of clicks to websites every day.”
Update, September 8th: Added a statement from Google.
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