Eric Siu and a co-host investigate whether web traffic is actually declining in 2025, despite Google's claims of stable search volume. Reddit saw measurable drops in Google referrals in Q2, especially in Germany, France, and Italy. AI search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity send tiny traffic volumes but convert at rates through the roof.
Reddit is starting to lose Google traffic. Google claims search traffic isn't declining. I don't know if you saw their press release or blog post.
I saw, yeah, you go, go.
But Google just put out a vague statement that search is up, more people are using search, and they said they're not necessarily seeing people see a decline in search traffic. They're seeing some people also get gains. They did not give specific numbers, and I bet you they did They did it on purpose.
I think Google's VP of Search is lying about how Google is actually doing because they said, oh, total organic click volume from searched websites has been relatively stable year on year and it's sending slightly more quality clicks than a year ago. I don't know about your traffic. I see the alligator, the open jaw. I'm just like, what? Like, definitely we're losing clicks.
I think we've more so lost clicks and it's stabilized and I don't think we're losing a ton more right now. We've seen some customers get good wins. We've seen some customers, of course, get lost. We've seen the alligator as well, but we've seen a lot of companies make up the losses in traffic, not necessarily getting more traffic, but getting higher conversions from AI traffic. So we're not seeing AI drive anywhere nearly the volume of organic traditional Google search or Bing search, but we're seeing ChatGPT and Perplexity driving a very, very you know, fraction of a percent in traffic, but the conversions are through the roof. And that's making up some of the losses from organic search. And as you and I both know, a lot of the factors are pretty much the same. There's some nuances, but—
So look, I, I just think they have to protect what they need to protect. Like they always, they'd always never completely tell the truth for the most part, like more often than not, even when you had the search liaison, all these people, and it's okay, right? You like, you take what they say with a grain of salt, and you try to interpret it with your own data. So That's how I look at it.
Reddit is starting to lose Google traffic.
Okay, so this is from Glenn Gabe on X. And so Glenn, by the way, so he's an SEO consultant. And so he said that Reddit CEO said traffic from Google varies from week to week, but overall it was a headwind in Q2. Headwind meaning that it's kind of going against them, right? Tailwind is when you're getting carried by it. So regarding headwind, quote unquote, check out international visibility trending for Reddit. I'm seeing that across tools, not great for them. That can change and jump back up, but I'm seeing a drop across several countries.
Yeah.
countries outside the US. I wonder if these AI translations are causing problems now that Google has seen that in place over time. Maybe another reason they are pushing forward with becoming a search engine. Germany, France, and Italy are below. So you can see what's happening is you can see it going up and then it kind of just drops and it's slightly rising again. This one was— this is Reddit daily updates. I don't know what it is, but yeah, you can see it's not doing well. I think these are quality of the—
They were showcasing Reddit so much in their search results on page 1 and the quality of the results were not relevant for A lot of keywords, but they were just pushing it.
Yeah, they had to dial it back at some point. Like, by the way, it's like whenever Google gives in the past, if you're an SEO, you know that they're going to take it away at some point. That's just how it is.
Well, when they're giving that much, they were giving a lot.
Yeah.
The only one that I would say has been pretty steady over the years, they may have seen some ups and downs, is Wikipedia.
Yeah.
But Wikipedia does not monetize.
Yeah.
So I think it's a little bit of a different story with Wikipedia.
And it doesn't even matter that Reddit has a deal with Google or whatever. They're going to do what they need to do.
So yeah, well, they're paying them for the data, so then, you know, yep, they can do whatever they want.
Anyway, that's it for today, guys. Bye.
