A report by Similarweb reveals a significant increase in ChatGPT referrals to news publishers, rising from under 1 million in early 2024 to over 25 million in 2025—an astounding 25x growth. Despite this surge, overall organic traffic for news websites has declined drastically, plummeting from 2.3 billion visits in mid-2024 to under 1.7 billion. A notable shift has occurred since Google launched its AI Overviews in May 2024, leading to nearly 69% of news searches resulting in no click-throughs to websites. While topics like finance and sports dominate ChatGPT prompts, other areas like politics are gaining traction. News publishers are urged to adapt to the changing landscape as SEO practices lose efficacy. Google has launched the Offerwall service for monetization alternatives in response to declining traffic. Amid this turmoil, the industry faces mass layoffs and closures while exploring new revenue strategies to cope with AI’s impact on the market.
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