{"id":1131,"date":"2025-09-08T20:50:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T16:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/google-admits-the-open-web-is-in-rapid-decline\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T20:50:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T16:50:20","slug":"google-admits-the-open-web-is-in-rapid-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/google-admits-the-open-web-is-in-rapid-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"Google admits the open web is in \u2018rapid decline\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For months, Google has maintained that the web is \u201cthriving,\u201d<\/a> AI isn\u2019t tanking traffic, and its search engine is sending people to a wider variety of websites than ever. But in a court<\/a> filing from last week, Google admitted that \u201cthe open web is already in rapid decline,\u201d as spotted earlier by Jason Kint<\/a> and reported on by Search Engine Roundtable<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Google submitted the filing ahead of another trial that will determine how it will address its monopoly in the advertising technology business<\/a>. The US Department of Justice recommends that Google break up its advertising business, but the company argues in the filing that this isn\u2019t ideal because it would \u201conly accelerate\u201d the decline of the open web, \u201charming publishers who currently rely on open-web display advertising revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement sharply contrasts Google\u2019s 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<\/a> and independent website owners<\/a> have reported experiencing a decline in traffic following changes to Google Search\u2019s algorithm and the rise of AI chatbots. <\/p>\n

When asked about these concerns during an episode of Decoder<\/em> in May<\/a>, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is \u201cdefinitely sending traffic to a wider range of sources and publishers\u201d following the rollout of AI search tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nick Fox, Google\u2019s senior vice president of knowledge, similarly defended<\/a> Google against claims that changes to search are impacting web traffic. \u201cFrom our point of view, the web is thriving,\u201d Fox said on an episode of the AI Inside<\/em> podcast<\/a>. In the wake of a report from Pew Research<\/a>, which said people are \u201cless likely\u201d to click on links when presented with Google\u2019s AI Overview, Google Search head Liz Reid claimed<\/a> that click volume has remained \u201crelatively stable\u201d when compared to the same time last year, adding that Google continues to \u201csend billions of clicks to websites every day.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For months, Google has maintained that the web is \u201cthriving,\u201d AI isn\u2019t tanking traffic, and its search engine is sending […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}