AI has been public enemy No. 1 for at least two years. As the early wave of excitement wore off, people realized the content we, as SEOs and publishers, had spent years flooding the internet with was being used to make the richest even richer.
We cannot deny the open web is changing – AI bot traffic grew 187% from January to December 2025, while human traffic grew just 3.1%. The value exchange for websites – particularly those who have traded on information and clicks – does not exist as it once did. At least not in as sustainable a manner.
While this has been expedited by the arrival of large language models – answer engines that have restructured the web without partaking in the click-based value exchange – audience habits have been shifting for some time. Generally not positively for publishers.
The Erosion Of Direct Relationships
Similarweb data for 15 publishers and four platforms show that direct traffic has declined across every segment over three years:
- Popular publishers: -33.1%
- Premium publishers: -23.4%
- Public service publisher(s): -19.9%
- The Platform segment also recorded a direct-traffic decline (-13.3%), but offset it through growth in other channels.
But the segment averages don’t tell the full story. The under-35 audience is declining roughly one-third faster than the over-35s. The exact cohort tomorrow’s (hopefully) paying subscribers come from.
Birmingham Mail saw a 54.6% reduction in direct traffic over this timeframe. The Mirror a close second at 52.9%. Conversely, The Telegraph lost just 8.9%. Potentially some Premium resilience on show.
The NYT saw growth in the UK market, albeit from a tiny user base, as did GB News – a relatively new proposition in 2023 to the best of my knowledge.
YouTube’s 17.8% loss in direct traffic over this same timeframe drags the Platform segment down. You could argue that this is symptomatic of more direct-to-app-based behavior. I suppose you could make the same argument for publishers.
All other platforms gained a direct user base over this timeframe. Although worth caveating that Substack and TikTok had a much smaller starting point:
- TikTok: +56.7%
- Substack: +248.8%
- Reddit: +4.7%
Platforms’ total traffic held up so effectively, thanks in no small part to Reddit’s extraordinary rise in organic search – up 114% over that same period. Which I’m sure none of you will be surprised by.
This Behavior Is Mirrored In Branded Search
It also may not surprise you to know that the loss of habitual audience is not limited to direct traffic. Branded searches – arguably the second or third best proxy of user resonance (alongside online mentions) – have been in similarly stark decline.
From the Daily Mail’s peak in 2013, the story has been fairly consistent and destructive. Publisher offerings have seemingly become less attractive.
Within the same three Similarweb data window, branded search fell…
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