Google Becomes a Direct Competitor to Publishers

As things are developing so rapidly, we are relaunching this blog with yet another topic on AI.

The previously unspoken “content for traffic” deal, which quietly governed the industry since the early 2000s, has now been abandoned.

Google is increasingly positioning itself as a competitor for users’ reading time. For publishers, this means that direct monetisation of their own audiences must become an even greater priority.

Thomas Baekdal puts it bluntly regarding the current developments: With the introduction of “AI Overviews” and the new “AI Mode”, Google is finally shifting from being a search engine to becoming an answer engine. The aim is no longer to direct users to the source, but rather to provide immediate answers within the Google ecosystem. Google is actively promoting AI Mode in search results to retain users within its own offering.

The impact is clearly measurable: Referral traffic from Google Search has declined internationally by 33 percent year-on-year and by 21 percent from Google Discover. Although our data from German clients has not yet shown such a marked downturn, it would defy all previous experience to expect that Google won’t pursue an equally consistent rollout of AI Mode in Europe as in the US.

From our perspective, the solution for publishers does not lie in maximising anonymous reach, but rather in intelligently converting and retaining users:

1. Protect exclusivity and safeguard premium content.
This means consistently hiding high-quality content from AI bots (using “no-index”) and utilising Google primarily as a marketing channel to build brand awareness. Our data from analysing dozens of regional publishers confirms this approach: a strong focus on “plus” content pays off. Publishers who place more than 60 percent of their content behind a paywall achieve significantly higher conversion rates. Concerns about loss of reach are often unfounded, as mere “Google flybys” rarely generate meaningful monetary value.

2. Conversion over traffic.
As the external inflow of users declines, the monetisation of traffic must become more efficient. It is a misconception that users need to be nurtured into loyalty over a long period before they are willing to make a purchase. Our analyses show that 40 to 50 percent of digital subscriptions are taken out by occasional users.

3. Building genuine customer loyalty through customer-centric practices in editorial and sales.
This means developing formats and features that deliver real, everyday value to readers and users. It also involves fostering close connections and ongoing dialogue with a community of readers who feel emotionally attached to the publication.

4. ReadersLoops.
The concept developed by Upscore GRIP helps to identify reader interests and needs in usage data and to integrate these insights into editorial planning. This demonstrably leads to more platform-independent traffic and significantly greater willingness to subscribe.

The transformation in the digital media market is fundamental. It is time to view Google primarily as a competitor and to reduce dependence on SEO-driven traffic. In our view, the focus should be on building robust, direct customer relationships and establishing independent monetisation strategies.

Christian Hasselbring is responsible for business development at Upscore.