Media Briefing: The anatomy of the publishers’ SEO dilemma

If last year was the year AI threw a wrench in the search optimization landscape, this year is the year publishers will have to figure out what to do about it. 

Do they try to feed the AI search machine, in the hopes that this will drive brand visibility and referral traffic? Or do they continue to focus on traditional Google search — a large driver of traffic, but an increasingly more volatile and unpredictable channel to depend on?

Those choices sit at the center of a rapidly complicating SEO landscape in 2026, as AI tightens its grip on discovery, algorithm tweaks shift rankings, and audience behaviors continue to drift away from familiar paths.

If that sounds dramatic, the latest data supports it: 63% of top U.S. news publishers lost search visibility as a result of Google’s latest core update in December, as Digiday previously reported. Publishers expect traffic from search engines to almost halve over the next three years, according to a Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism report. Chartbeat data shows Google traffic from organic search to over 2,500 sites was down by 38% in the U.S last year. 

And it’s not just search. Google Discover, which was once a growing referral traffic source for publishers, has become more volatile. Discover traffic was also down 21% year over year, according to the Reuters report.

Those numbers — and what they signal about the year ahead — have revived a familiar debate: whether publishers should try to wean themselves off Google’s referral traffic altogether. Barry Adams, an SEO and audience growth consultant for news publishers, has argued the opposite. In a LinkedIn post, he warned that pulling back from Google optimization would likely accelerate traffic losses, not prevent them. For better or worse, Google remains one of the largest drivers of publisher traffic, even as it becomes a riskier one to depend on. 

“A lot of publishers have relied on Google’s growth to fuel their own growth… Now these publishers aren’t growing or decreasing, and they blame Google, rather than maybe blaming themselves,” Adams told Digiday. “Maybe stop doing the things that you’ve been doing just to chase after traffic and more of the things that you should have been doing the last 15 years to build authority, build trust, and build — more than anything — a loyal audience that is immune to whatever the tech guys are up to.”

Let’s take a look at the dilemma publishers are facing in SEO this year.

Traffic sources are fragmenting

From my own reporting, I haven’t had anyone tell me they are giving up on Google. Relying less on Google search? Sure. People Inc, Ziff Davis, Future, Reach and more have each cut back on how much of their traffic comes from search. They’re trying to boost their direct traffic (through channels like newsletters), referrals from news aggregators like Reddit and views from video platforms like YouTube (especially as many increase their video output).

The results so far have been uneven. Taken together, it is less a clean pivot than a cautious rebalancing, with no obvious replacement for the scale Google once reliably provided. The biggest piece of the pie may be getting smaller — but it’s still the biggest piece of the pie.

That leaves publishers with one realistic path: diversification. One could argue it always should have been the priority. What has changed is urgency. Search volatility has turned a long-term strategy into a near-term necessity. Heads of SEO have told Digiday that this year, one of their biggest goals is to determine what the new KPIs for their teams are, such as engagement and conversion metrics. The pursuit of scale for its own sake is fading. It has become too unstable, too expensive and too dependent on systems publishers no longer control.

Publishers grapple with ranking volatility

That lack of control has become harder to ignore. As we reported last week, Google’s latest core update marked another inflection point in the volatility publishers are now contending with in search. Algorithm updates have always been part of what SEO teams have to deal with, but these feel more significant at a time when referrals from search are already becoming harder to grow.

Sistrix data shared with Digiday illustrates just how uneven the impact has been. Following Google’s December core update, search visibility scores swung sharply for several news publishers. MSNBC, Newsweek and Yahoo News saw declines, while others like Mashable, Vulture and The Intercept gained ground. 

It’s just another sign that publishers don’t control their own fate in search.

That doesn’t automatically mean surrendering to whatever AI-driven optimization demands next. The last era of aggressive SEO — dominated by clickbait headlines and content engineered to satisfy algorithms rather than readers — showed how incentives can warp editorial priorities. Chasing short-term visibility often came at the expense of trust, quality and long-term audience relationships. Publishers are wary of repeating that mistake, even as the pressure to adapt intensifies. 

So far, larger digital publishers haven’t shared plans to do so. Maybe they learned the hard way the last time around. Or perhaps it’s because the business case for AI search optimization isn’t clear.

For now, SEO and audience leaders are taking a narrower, more tactical approach. They are adjusting content formats and structure to make their websites easier to understand by AI systems (just look at all the bullet points and Q&A-style subheads on publishers’ sites). Structuring content to quickly answer questions has been one way to get AI systems to cite their sites. Many have also turned their backs on producing evergreen content, because LLMs reward recently updated, fresh content. Google AI Overviews also answers many of these search queries with an AI-generated summary. 

Sticking to the rules of SEO — even as KPIs evolve

Most heads of SEO say that if you’re abiding by the rules of traditional SEO, content should continue to do well in search, and lend itself to better visibility in AI search, too. The dilemma publishers face doesn’t mean they should choose optimizing for AI search over SEO, but to focus on the best experience for users, heads of SEO told Digiday.

With more tools available to understand which prompts and topics are driving citations and mentions of publishers’ sites in AI tools, publishers have a slightly clearer picture of what actually performs well there.

“We don’t 100% know how to quantify the value of showing up in an [AI] answer engine. But we know we need to be there. So we need to understand how the LLMs are seeing our content and what helps them identify relevant and salient answers to the questions people are asking. A lot of it is the same old principles of SEO,” said Forbes chief innovation officer Nina Gould.

In 2026, SEO strategies won’t bring back the bulk of the traffic lost. But it’s too risky for publishers to abandon their efforts on Google search altogether. Instead, they’re prioritizing high value audiences — those that read a lot of content, who return to their site, who convert to newsletter or paying subscribers — over scale.

“Where we’re leaning is we need to make sure that top of the funnel acquisition opportunity that the SEO team focuses on — that they aren’t just focused on getting as much of the audience in as possible, but they’re focused on getting the right audience in,” Gould said. “It’s not just about the volume of people coming in the door, but it’s about the quality of people coming in the door.”

What we’ve heard

“We’ve really focused on making sure that we have a direct communication line with our audience, and have not relied on search traffic as much as so many other places… Even visits to our site are driven through the newsletter. It’s something that we watch really, really closely, because it’s obviously something that we’re seeing in the space be a challenge… I think because we had never been site-first, we’re not as impacted as other people have been.”

— Anna Palmer, CEO of Punchbowl News, on the impact of industry-wide search referral traffic declines.

Numbers to know

$125.7 billion: The estimated combined revenue of daily and weekly news publications globally in 2025, falling 0.01% year over year.

1%: The year over year decline in Reach’s 2025 digital revenue, due to a decline in Google referral volumes and macroeconomic pressure.

$50 million: The annual revenue newsletter company Beehiiv expects to make this year, doubling last year’s revenue.

$5: The price of Pitchfork’s new subscription, which also lets readers comment and rate albums.

What we’ve covered

The top AI platforms for publishers, ranked

• Not all publishers are able to partake in the buffet of AI platforms looking to pay for their content now, but those that are can enjoy a fuller menu of options.
• In the latest Digiday Podcast episode, we review a scorecard of the major AI platforms based on interviews with publishers, sharing the reasoning behind why platforms from Meta to Microsoft, Anthropic to OpenAI may rate higher or lower than you’d expect.

Listen to the episode here.

How the creator economy breaks down by business model

• Creators are building very different kinds of businesses, with very different economics.
• Understanding the variety and varying reach of content creators – from audience-owned media companies to platform-native entertainers – is crucial to maximize reach on YouTube and elsewhere.

Read the breakdown here.

The Rundown: Google has drawn its AI payment lines — and publishers’ leverage is narrow

• Google’s testimony to U.K. lawmakers clarified the boundaries of what the company believes it should, and should not, pay publishers for in the AI-driven search ecosystem.
• For publishers trying to navigate AI licensing, the message was blunt: Google is willing to pay for access, but not for training.

Read more here.

What we’re reading

Why is the media obsessed with prediction markets?

Prediction market platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi are seeping into the media, as new partnerships that allow people to bet on real-world events risk manipulation and the erosion of reliable information, The Atlantic reported.

Publisher lawsuits against Google for antitrust violations are piling on

Vox Media is the latest in a wave of media companies that have filed lawsuits against Google for antitrust violations, The Verge reported.

AI startup Symbolic.ai signs deal with News Corp

News Corp signed a deal with AI journalism startup company Symbolic.ai to use its platform — which is marketed as a tool to make editorial workflows more efficient — with its financial news hub Dow Jones Newswires, TechCrunch reported.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark on why he’s pulling back on funding journalism

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, who has put hundreds of millions of dollars into journalism, said he is pulling back from news, saying a lot of his efforts fizzled out, Nieman Lab reported.

CNN will stream video podcasts from Lemonada 

Video episodes of Lemonada’s podcasts — such as shows from Hasan Minaj and Mandy Patinkin — will stream on the CNN app (as well as YouTube), according to The Hollywood Reporter.