[nathanyz]

The thing that he doesn't mention is that as soon as they do something legislatively and announce routes there, etc.....well Google just won't crawl those sites. It turns into a game of whether you would like 0 traffic from Google, or allow them to use your content both for search results and AI summaries.

Google is the bringer of traffic and if you want it, then you play by their rules. I don't like that the web is in that position, but here we are.

[lbhdc]

I think it gets tricky with AI overviews. Some sites are saying they have lost the majority of their traffic (some losing more than 90%). Many of those make money from ads (often by google).

Some sites don't get enough traffic from google to sustain their business where they previously did. Wholesale blocking google crawlers doesn't seem like a risky move for them.

It makes me wonder if that is a trend? Will more sites go to 'google zero'?

[handfuloflight]

Doesn't this also cannibalize Google's ad revenue?