GoKawiilGoogle’s search traffic has been the lifeblood of online business for 25 years. Now it may be hitting a dead end.
In a recent interview with The Verge, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was asked about Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch, who recently told his teams to plan as if Google search traffic will hit zero — a scenario known as “Google Zero.” Pichai didn’t push back. “I’m not in a position to tell such an iconic publisher what they should think about their business,” he said.
When editor-in-chief of The Verge and host of the Decoder podcast Nilay Patel asked Pichai if he disagreed with the idea that Google will stop sending traffic to the web, Pichai replied, “Very much so. It hasn’t happened in the last many years.”
Despite what Pichai has said, the fear remains, with the implications of “Google Zero” going far beyond publishing. AI-generated answers in Google Search now resolve queries directly on the results page, meaning fewer clicks for ecommerce stores, service providers, and anyone relying on organic traffic. Pichai said Google is “very committed” to connecting users with the web and pointed to ongoing iterations. But for entrepreneurs who built businesses on Google’s free firehose, the message is clear: don’t count on it flowing.