Reddit and Major Publishers May Block Google Over AI Overviews

Reddit and several major publishers, including USA Today, Politico, Reuters, The Economist and People Inc., are reportedly considering blocking Google's crawlers entirely after AI Overviews wiped out large chunks of their referral traffic. No one has pulled the trigger yet, but the fact that it's on the table at all marks the first serious mass revolt against the AI-search model Google has built its future around. It raises hard questions for anyone who relies on Google to send them visibility or visitors.

What changed?

A Wall Street Journal report revealed that several major publishers are reconsidering how much access they give Google's crawlers as AI-generated search summaries continue to cut into their traffic. According to reporting picked up by TechSpot, USA Today Co. is considering blocking Google's crawler if search referrals keep declining, and Semrush data shows organic US Google traffic to USA Today's national website fell by almost half between June 2025 and June 2026.

The numbers vary sharply by outlet. Politico's traffic declined 23%, CNN lost around 25%, and Business Insider's traffic plunged more than 85%. USA Today's chief executive summed up the mood bluntly, telling the Wall Street Journal: "It's time to take a stand and say enough is enough."

Reddit's situation is different but connected. The platform is negotiating a potential renewal of a licensing deal signed in 2024 that reportedly pays it around $60 million a year, and executives are said to be using the threat of walking away as leverage. Reddit shares fell nearly 9% after the WSJ report, and Wells Fargo warned the company could lose up to $500 million in AI licensing revenue if it walks away from Google. That gap between the size of the threat and the size of the financial risk shows how much bargaining power Google still holds, even as publishers grow angrier.

Not every outlet is losing out. Analysis of the underlying data found that The Guardian and the BBC were named in the same WSJ chart as publishers that saw traffic gains over the same window, suggesting brand-driven publishers with strong direct demand are weathering the shift better than sites that depend on query-driven discovery.

Why can't publishers just block Google's AI features?

This is what makes the standoff so awkward. Google currently ties the crawling it uses for traditional search indexing to the same systems that power AI training and AI Overviews. Publishers can opt out of having content used for Gemini training through Google-Extended, but blocking content from AI Overviews risks losing visibility in ordinary search results too.

In effect, publishers face a binary choice: stay visible in normal search results and accept that Google may answer questions using their content without sending a click, or block Google and disappear from search entirely. That's not really a choice most businesses can afford to make unilaterally.

Regulators have started to notice this bundling problem. Last month, the UK Competition and Markets Authority ordered Google to let publishers opt out of AI search features without risking their position in regular results. Google has said it will test these controls in Britain before considering a wider rollout, but no timeline has been given.

Why does this matter for your business?

If you run a website, a brand or a content operation, this story matters for three reasons.

First, it confirms that click-through collapse from AI Overviews is now severe enough that even large media companies with legal teams and negotiating leverage are struggling to respond. If USA Today, Politico and Reuters can't force a better deal from Google, smaller businesses have even less room to negotiate.

Second, the data on what happens when AI Overviews appear is stark. A gHacks report cites a Pew Research Centre study finding that users clicked on traditional links in 15% of searches without an AI Overview. When an Overview appeared, that fell to 8%. Clicks on links inside Google's AI summaries occurred in only 1% of searches. That last figure is the one to sit with: even when your content is cited inside an AI Overview, the odds of someone clicking through are vanishingly small.

Third, this dispute isn't isolated. It sits inside a wider pattern of legal and regulatory pressure on Google's AI search model. Chegg sued Google in February 2025 alleging AI Overviews hurt its traffic and revenue, and Penske Media followed in September 2025 over AI summaries. USA Today Co. is separately suing Google over an alleged ad-tech monopoly, running alongside its crawler-blocking deliberations. The European Union has also opened an antitrust investigation into whether Google is using publisher content for AI without fair compensation. Pressure on Google is coming from multiple directions at once.

Google, for its part, says its AI features still drive billions of visits to websites each week and help publishers reach new audiences. The company has started paying more than 200 publishers for AI access and lets users choose preferred news sources. Whether that offsets the traffic losses reported by USA Today, Politico and Business Insider is exactly what this standoff is testing.

What should you do now?

You almost certainly can't negotiate a bespoke deal with Google the way Reddit is trying to. But there are three practical steps worth taking in response.

Stop measuring success by rankings alone. If being on page one no longer guarantees a click, your reporting needs to track how often you appear inside AI answers, not just where you rank in blue links.

Build content that survives being summarised. If an AI Overview is going to extract and answer the query anyway, your best defence is having the specific fact, figure or explanation that gets pulled into that summary, ideally with your brand name attached, even if the click doesn't follow.

Diversify where your visibility comes from. This dispute is entirely about Google's dominance over crawling and search visibility. Businesses that also build presence with ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI platforms are less exposed if any single company changes its terms. It's worth checking where you currently stand across these systems: Sited's free audit at https://sited.online can show how visible your brand already is in AI-generated answers, separate from traditional Google rankings.

Frequently asked questions

Has any publisher actually blocked Google yet?

No. As of the most recent reporting, no named publisher, including Reddit, has actually cut Google off. This is a live decision under consideration, not a completed action.

Why is Reddit's situation different from the news publishers?

Reddit's dispute centres on a specific licensing agreement rather than general search referral traffic. Reddit previously signed a $60 million annual data-licensing deal with Alphabet in 2024, and executives are reportedly reconsidering the partnership as AI summaries reduce user click-throughs.

Can publishers block AI Overviews without losing regular search visibility?

Not yet, in most markets. Blocking content from AI Overviews currently risks losing visibility in conventional search results too, although the UK's competition regulator has ordered Google to build an opt-out that avoids this trade-off.

Does this affect only large media companies?

No. The mechanism, AI Overviews answering queries before a click happens, applies to any website that ranks in Google, including small business and ecommerce sites. The scale of the drop varies by outlet, but the underlying click-through collapse is industry-wide.

What is the single most useful thing to check right now?

Look at how your brand appears across AI Overviews, ChatGPT and other AI platforms compared with your traditional Google rankings. A gap between the two is often the clearest early warning that your visibility strategy needs to change.