Reddit and several major publishers are reevaluating the amount of access they offer Google as search referral traffic declines following the rollout of AI Overviews, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal cited by TechSpot.
The companies considering restrictions include Reddit, USA Today, Reuters, Politico, The Economist, and People Inc. The concern is that Google’s AI features are providing answers directly to users without redirecting traffic to the original sources.
Following the report, Reddit’s shares dropped as much as 5.8% in premarket trading.
Reddit Weighs Blocking Google’s AI Use of Its Posts
Reddit has discussed the possibility of blocking Google from using its collection of user posts for AI purposes, according to the Wall Street Journal. The two companies are currently negotiating a potential renewal of a licensing agreement signed in 2024, which reportedly pays Reddit around $60 million annually.
Under the existing deal, Google receives a continuously updated source of human conversations for training its AI models, while Reddit received tens of millions of dollars before its IPO.
TechSpot reports that this arrangement now seems less advantageous for Reddit, as Google’s AI products use the licensed data to answer questions without directing users back to Reddit.
The decline in traffic is not limited to Reddit. USA Today Co. is considering blocking Google’s crawler if referral numbers continue to decrease. According to Semrush data cited by TechSpot, organic US Google traffic to the USA Today national site fell by nearly half between June 2025 and June 2026. Politico’s traffic declined by 23%, CNN saw a drop of around 25%, and Business Insider experienced a decrease of more than 85%.
USA Today Co. CEO Mike Reed stated, “It’s time to take a stand and say enough is enough.”
Google’s Opt-Out Controls Create a Trade-Off for Publishers
Google offers publishers a range of controls to manage how their content is crawled and used, but each option comes with its own trade-offs. Publishers can block content from training Gemini using the Google-Extended token, but doing so risks losing visibility in traditional search results as well as in AI Overviews.
More restrictive measures, like the noindex directive, remove pages from Google entirely, while nosnippet can limit a page’s presence in search listings.
This connection between AI features and standard search rankings presents a key challenge for publishers who want to opt out of AI Overviews without dropping out of search results altogether.
Regulators in the United Kingdom are addressing this issue. Last month, the UK Competition and Markets Authority ordered Google to allow publishers to opt out of AI search features without risking their position in regular results.
Google has announced plans to test these controls in Britain before making them available globally, but no timeline has been provided.
Click-Through Data Shows the Impact of AI Overviews
A Pew Research Center study from last year found that users clicked on traditional links in 15 percent of searches that did not include an AI Overview. When an Overview appeared, that number dropped to 8 percent. Clicks on links within Google’s AI summaries occurred in only 1 percent of searches.
Google reports that its AI features still drive billions of visits to websites each week and help publishers expand their audiences. The company has started paying more than 200 publishers for AI access and allows users to choose their preferred news sources.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has warned that AI summaries could be damaging the web’s business model, noting that bots now make up around 56 percent of internet traffic.
Site operators assessing their own exposure to potential traffic losses from AI Overviews can take several specific steps based on current controls:
- Measure the share of organic Google traffic reaching key pages by comparing data from June 2025 to June 2026, as referenced in Semrush data, to identify any decline.
- Check whether the Google-Extended token is present in robots.txt, which blocks content from Gemini training but does not prevent it from appearing in AI Overviews.
- Consider the implications of nosnippet and noindex directives, as both can reduce or eliminate standard search visibility rather than just affecting AI Overviews.
- Monitor the UK Competition and Markets Authority program to allow users to opt out, since Google has said it will trial separate controls in Britain before any broader rollout.
- Evaluate eligibility for Google’s publisher payment program, which currently provides funding for over 200 publishers for AI access.
What Happens Next for Publishers
Google has not set a timeline for extending the UK opt-out controls to other markets, and it remains unclear what the outcome will be of the Reddit licensing renewal negotiations.
For most publishers, the available controls still present a choice between including their content in AI Overview or maintaining standard search visibility. This restriction continues outside the UK until Google implements its separated opt-out mechanism.
