Ziff Davis loses 37% of Google traffic as publishers count the AI bill

The clearest number of the week came from a publisher's earnings call. On Friday, November 6, Vivek Shah, chief executive of Ziff Davis, told analysts that organic Google referrals to CNET, IGN, PCMag and the company's other sites fell about 37% in the third quarter, after a drop of about 23% a year earlier. He added a second figure that may matter more: Search Console data showed Ziff Davis content appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode about 2.7 billion times, close to ten times the clicks the company received from Google Search. "Look, I think our position is we're not planning on a search recovery," Shah said. Within the same 24 hours, USA TODAY Co. described a $100 million cost reduction programme after search-referred advertising fell, Teads wrote off the last of its goodwill after AI summaries cut publisher page views, and Yelp reported its seventh straight quarter of falling ad clicks. The infrastructure companies selling to AI had a much better week. Cloudflare posted its fastest growth in nearly four years. And in California, Meta and Google went to court to keep their feeds the way they are.

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Publishers count what search took

PPC Land reported that Ziff Davis lost 37% of its Google search traffic in a year. Third-quarter revenue, reported on November 5, fell 5.6% to $289.3 million, and advertising and performance marketing revenue fell 7.7% to $186 million. The Technology and Shopping segment took a $29.6 million goodwill impairment, and Health and Wellness fell 9.5% as MedPage Today lost share. Shah said the company is open to licensing deals and is waiting for clarity from its copyright suit against OpenAI. In the meantime it is moving toward social commerce, video, apps and email, including a relaunched RetailMeNot app. AI now writes more than 90% of the company's pull requests, and headcount will fall 10% by the end of the year. PPC Land cautioned that impressions and clicks are not a clean comparison, and that the company did not disclose its click total.

USA TODAY Co., the company once called Gannett, put a price on the same trend. PPC Land reported that USA TODAY Co. cut $100 million in annual costs after search hit ad sales. Revenue fell 7.4% to $519.2 million in the third quarter and adjusted EBITDA fell 36% to $36.6 million. Indirect digital advertising, the programmatic and recommendation revenue that depends on visitors arriving from search, fell 32% to roughly $100 million annualised. The company blamed fewer search referrals, the loss of a programmatic partner and Google's spam policy on back button hijacking, in force since June 15. Chief executive Mike Reed called search visitors the lowest-value users by CPM. "There is definitely a pull forward here. It is happening a little faster than we would have liked," he said. Monthly unique visitors stood at 161 million, down from 187 million a year earlier. The company's antitrust suit against Google, seeking $901 million before trebling, goes to trial on April 5, 2027.

The publishers that own destinations rather than traffic held up better. PPC Land reported that News Corp's News Media profit dropped 40% to $18m in a record quarter. Group revenue rose 6% to $2.28bn and net income rose 43% to $215m in the quarter to September, driven by Dow Jones, property listings and books. Dow Jones advertising rose 9% to $93m, with digital up 12%. But the segment holding The Sun, The Times, the New York Post and News Corp Australia saw profit fall from $30m to $18m. Chief executive Robert Thomson argued that News Corp's sites are relatively insulated from AI traffic losses. "The generic does not flourish as synthesis proliferates," he said. Filings assign no value to the company's AI licensing agreements with OpenAI and Meta.

BuzzFeed had nothing to insulate. PPC Land reported that BuzzFeed revenue dropped 44% to $26m in Byron Allen's first full quarter. Advertising fell 31% to $15.4 million and commerce revenue, mostly affiliate, fell 71% to $4.8 million. Part of the fall came from timing: Amazon's Prime Day contributed about $7 million a year earlier and moved to June this year. Excluding it, PPC Land calculated that revenue still fell about 34%. Net loss widened to $18.7 million. Allen outlined a free streaming plan without dates or targets, and there were no analyst questions on the call.

Teads and Yelp feel the squeeze

The companies that sell ads around publisher content reported the same pressure from the other side. PPC Land reported that Teads revenue dropped 26% as direct response profit halved. Third-quarter revenue fell to $235.1 million, and a $272.4 million non-cash goodwill impairment pushed the net loss to $325.5 million. The direct response and small business unit saw ex-TAC gross profit halve to $20 million. Chief executive David Kostman blamed AI search summaries and algorithm changes, which he said had cut publisher page views by 20% to 60%. Connected TV revenue grew 37% to 12% of the total. "Our focus on the home screen, or the front door to the living room, is paying off," Kostman said. The balance sheet tells a harder story: a stockholders' deficit of $318.2 million at September 30, debt obligations of $657.2 million and cash of $90.3 million. Management is in talks with debtholders, and the filing refers to the risk of a Nasdaq delisting. Michael Coyle becomes chief financial officer on November 11.

Local search is shrinking too. PPC Land reported that Yelp ad revenue dropped 6% as clicks fell 8% in the third quarter. Advertising revenue fell to $337 million, the seventh consecutive quarterly decline in ad clicks, while average cost per click rose 2%. Other revenue rose 82% to a record $33.9 million, helped by the lead management firm Hatch, data licensing and food ordering, and the Yelp Host AI phone agent reached an annual run rate of 2.5 million calls. Yelp cut its full-year revenue outlook to between $1.455 billion and $1.460 billion, below 2025. "We do not expect the local advertising market to turn anytime soon," said Jed Nachman, its chief operating officer. Chief executive Jeremy Stoppelman pointed to AI data deals with OpenAI and Meta, but Yelp does not break out licensing revenue.

The infrastructure collects

The companies that sit underneath AI traffic had a very different week. PPC Land reported that Cloudflare revenue gained 39% to $782.5m, its fastest growth in nearly four years. It now expects GAAP profitability in the fourth quarter of 2026, years ahead of its 2028 target. Cloudflare booked first revenue from what it calls "Act 4" products, which sit between AI agents and websites and meter or charge for that traffic, without saying how much. Chief executive Matthew Prince said OpenAI pays for crawl-efficiency signals and called micropayments and agent-aware advertising future opportunities that could, a decade out, be Cloudflare's largest business. "There is no other way to say this. By nearly every metric, we had our best quarter ever," Prince said. Daily AI agent requests rose more than 1,700% between June 2025 and May 2026. The same filing lists AI chatbots reducing website visits as a risk, which is the problem Cloudflare proposes to sell the cure for.

The midterms filled other tills. PPC Land reported that Magnite net income gained 70% to $34m as political ads neared three times forecast. Revenue rose 14% to $204.2 million and contribution ex-TAC rose 20% to $200.6 million, with connected TV now 53% of the total. Political advertising contributed about $12 million in the quarter, and Magnite now expects more than $40 million for the year, against a $15 million forecast. "There's no question it crowded out advertising," said chief executive Michael Barrett. On AI agents, he said adoption among clients was "like 50-50." Moving cloud capacity onto its own servers cut streaming cost per billion ad requests by more than half. Guidance for 2027 excludes any benefit from the remedies in Google's ad tech case.

Television's smaller platforms reported mixed results. PPC Land reported that Xperi ad and related revenue gained 281% to $14.9m but was flat on the second quarter. TiVo One reached 6.8 million monthly active devices, and MediaMarktSaturn chose TiVo OS for its private-label PEAQ televisions, Xperi's 11th TV maker win. But Xperi lowered its growth goal for the media platform to about 60% this year from roughly 100%. PPC Land also reported that MNTN cut its 2026 revenue forecast 11% after sales execution problems. The connected TV platform for small businesses now expects $311 million to $314 million, and fourth-quarter revenue is guided below a year earlier. Tony Weisman, a former Dunkin' marketing chief, became chief executive on November 2, succeeding the founder Mark Douglas. "What MNTN needs is operational rigor and I am here to instill a culture of accountability and flawless execution," Weisman said.

Software buyers are hesitating as well. PPC Land reported that HubSpot forecasts fourth-quarter revenue below the third as growth slows to 12% from 17%. Third-quarter revenue rose 17% to $947.6 million, but HubSpot expects net new annual recurring revenue to decline this year. Chief executive Yamini Rangan said AI is changing how businesses find, test and buy software. "They want to see the proof of AI before they buy," she said. HubSpot is piloting hybrid pricing that mixes seats with usage credits, now offered to new customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and is restructuring about 7% of its staff.

Snap's advertising business barely grew. PPC Land reported that Snap ad revenue gained 4% as subscriptions supplied 74% of third-quarter growth. Revenue rose 14% to $1.72 billion, but advertising rose only to $1.37 billion while subscription and other revenue climbed 84% to $349.7 million. "Certainly 4% ad growth is below our ambitions," said Evan Spiegel, co-founder and chief executive. Direct response now accounts for about 77% of revenue, and brand advertising fell with weaker consumer goods spending. North American daily users fell 6% to 92 million. From early 2027, Snap will report monthly active users as its main metric and stop reporting regional daily users and revenue per user.

YouTube is building revenue from fans directly. PPC Land reported that YouTube creators in the US, UK and seven more markets gain income from paid hypes. Viewers who have used their three free weekly hypes can spend Jewels, an in-app currency, to keep boosting videos up a national leaderboard, and creators earn Rubies paid through AdSense. The feature is limited to channels with between 500 and 500,000 subscribers. YouTube disclosed neither the price of a hype nor the revenue share. A single hype earns 7,500 points for a channel with 500 subscribers and 50 for one with 500,000, a gap designed to favour smaller creators.

Instagram is offering exposure instead. Alyssa Mercante reported in Digiday that creators see promise in Instagram's long-form push but question whether exposure is enough. Instagram now accepts videos up to 90 minutes long and has paid a handful of creators between $50,000 and $500,000 to post through its new Features product, but says it is "too early" to share a monetisation model. In a Shine Talent Group survey of 50 creators, 93% said Instagram would need to change its revenue policies before they would post long-form work. Nick Jacklin of Shorthand Studios favoured a model like YouTube's, paying about $1 per view and shared with creators.

California and Brussels take on the feed

The feed itself is now on trial on two continents. PPC Land reported that Meta sued California to block its under-16 feed and autoplay ban. The complaint, filed on November 4 in federal court in Northern California, challenges Assembly Bill 1709 as applied to Facebook, Instagram and Threads: its bans on personalised feeds and autoplay for users under 16 and its account deletion rule. The law, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 10, takes effect on January 1, 2027, with penalties up to $50,000 per affected minor. Meta argues that feed curation is protected editorial expression and that Section 230 preempts the law. PPC Land noted that the complaint omits an August consent judgment with California that set several of the teen defaults Meta now cites as alternatives.

Google filed a parallel suit the same day. PPC Land reported that Google sued to block California's under-16 feed ban on YouTube, leading with the argument that choosing which videos to show is publishing activity protected by Section 230. The filing is signed by Elizabeth Prelogar of Cooley. "YouTube cannot recover the costs of compliance from the State," it says. TikTok is fighting an older law. PPC Land reported that TikTok faces a one-hour default teen feed limit in California after a court loss: on August 5, Judge Edward Davila denied preliminary injunctions sought by TikTok, Meta and YouTube against SB 976, which requires parental consent before minors receive a personalised feed and sets a default one-hour daily limit. From January 1, 2027, operators must reasonably determine that a user is not a minor before serving a personalised feed without consent, which in practice means age checks for everyone. For brands and creators that reach teenagers, reach could shift toward non-personalised feeds and search.

Brussels went after the design of the feed. PPC Land reported that TikTok faces a fine of up to 6% of turnover over the "rabbit hole effect" of its main recommendation feed. On November 6, the European Commission preliminarily found that TikTok breached the Digital Services Act by failing to assess how its algorithm can pull users into continuous streams of videos about sadness, isolation and body image, and that its mitigation measures are ineffective. The Commission said TikTok should rely more on explicit preferences and stop using viewing time as a recommendation signal. A confirmed decision could bring a fine of up to 6% of worldwide annual turnover. Earlier fines under the law include EUR 120 million against X and EUR 200 million against Temu.

ChatGPT shows businesses their mentions

The AI platforms are starting to build the measurement tools publishers have been asking for. Barry Schwartz reported that OpenAI is working on ChatGPT tools for business analytics and citations, and PPC Land reported that ChatGPT builds mention and click charts for verified businesses. Juozas Kaziukenas of Marketplace Pulse spotted the dashboard, which charts daily impressions, meaning appearances in responses, and clicks to a business's website. It sits in a Business Hub open to companies that verify ownership, for example by connecting a Shopify store, and also lets them update product details and set up an agent that answers customer questions. "The feature is a work in progress and I saw its first steps as early as August," Kaziukenas wrote. It shows no prompt data, user data or competitor rankings, so it cannot explain why mentions change. OpenAI has not announced it. Glenn Gabe had argued for exactly this tool in July 2025: "We desperately need that for AI Search tools, and yesterday."

Bing is experimenting with its own AI surfaces. Schwartz reported that Bing is showing an AI visual summary button beside search snippets, which loads an AI-generated infographic summarising the linked page. "It looks like AI-slop to me but hey..." Schwartz wrote. PPC News Feed reported that a new heading was spotted above Bing Shopping ads, an "Ads" label that sits alongside the existing "Sponsored" label, marking the units as paid twice.

Amazon texts its shoppers

Amazon took its shopping agent into the text message thread. Krystal Scanlon reported in Digiday that Amazon's shopping agent now takes orders by text, with Sponsored Product ads in the replies, and Mitchell Parton reported in Adweek that Amazon is letting customers text its shopping assistant. From November 6, a small invite-only group of US customers can text Alexa for Shopping to reorder household items, build a grocery list from a recipe photo or find a gift that arrives by a given day. Sponsored Products ads appear only when the agent offers options; purchases the agent makes on its own stay ad-free, and Amazon is not yet charging advertisers for the placements. Amazon says more than 400 million customers used Alexa for Shopping in the past 12 months. "Customers often jot down what they need the moment they think of it in their notes, in their messages, in their group chats," said Rajiv Mehta, Amazon's vice president of conversational shopping.

Trust is the obstacle. PPC Land reported that 60% of UK adults would drop an AI shopping agent after one mistake, ACI finds, from a YouGov poll of 2,080 adults that ACI Worldwide published in June. Only 19% trusted AI assistants to make everyday purchases within rules they set, against 55% for a human adviser, and 54% said the company that built the agent should pay refunds when it goes wrong. "Consumers are comfortable with AI assisting decisions, but deeply uncomfortable with AI making them," ACI said.

Amazon's sellers, meanwhile, got their annual bill. PPC Land reported that Amazon sellers face an average $0.19 FBA fee rise from January 15, 2027, about 0.8% of average selling price. Small standard items priced above $50 rise most, by $0.70 a unit on average, and low-priced books, DVDs and computer products lose their low-price rates. Some large heavy goods get cheaper. Storage moves to a single age-based monthly rate, and Buy X, Get Y promotions gain a $5 upfront fee plus a 2% variable fee capped at $2,000.

Google's holiday tools and a broken feed

Google is selling automation for the holidays. PPC News Feed reported that Google Ads added new AI tools for holiday campaigns in what Google calls Creative Drop #2: campaign translation into 15 languages inside Google Ads, Asset Studio features that turn product images into festive scenes, and a Gemini model that converts static images into 15-second YouTube video ads. PPC News Feed also reported that Google Demand Gen combines ad formats and automates controls: a single ad can now mix images, videos, carousels, product feeds and text, and Google will choose placements based on video dimensions, so square or horizontal videos may run on YouTube Shorts with a blur effect. Single-media ad creation remains available until January 2027.

The plumbing failed on the same day. Schwartz reported that Google confirmed issues with Merchant Center, its API and feeds, posted to the status page at 10:26 UTC on November 6, three weeks before Black Friday. "We're investigating reports of an issue with Merchant API, Merchant Center, and Feeds," Google said.

Local businesses gained new channels. Schwartz reported that Google expanded business messaging to Google Maps on iOS and Android, with a prominent Message button next to Call that routes chats to WhatsApp or text. Lisa Landsman of Google wrote that chat had previously been buried deep in a profile and that "messaging is front and center" now. Schwartz also reported a new help document on managing offers on Business Profiles, including how to remove unauthorised offers added by third-party partners. And he reported that Google AI Mode is asking some searchers to continue with their search, with a warning that "malicious queries could result in unsafe or harmful actions." Schwartz speculated that the prompt may be meant to filter out bots.

Meta borrows the website's offers

Meta's automation reached promotions. PPC Land reported that Meta can add website offers to copied ads even with promotions turned off. Bram Van der Hallen of Edge.be posted on November 6 that a "Detected offers" checkbox in Commerce Manager lets Meta show discounts it finds on an advertiser's website in Facebook and Instagram ads, and Meta's own duplicate-ad notice says eligible promotions can appear on a new ad even when they were switched off on the original. The setting applies at account level, and its default status is unclear. With Black Friday on November 27, an unexpected discount in an ad is not a small matter.

Retail media buyers change their questions

The retail media market is maturing in what buyers ask for. PPC Land reported that retail media buyers asking for ROAS dropped to 49% from 89%, IAB Europe finds. IAB Europe's third report, released November 3, drew 150 respondents. Unified online and offline reporting now leads buyer requests at 66%, followed by new-to-brand metrics at 63% and incrementality at 57%. Some 58% of buyers want multi-touch attribution, but only 31% of sellers offer it, and 73% of sellers still lead with return on ad spend. "Nobody in this study is questioning whether retail media works," wrote Jason Wescott, who chairs the committee. PPC Land noted that the European bases are small.

Travel data showed spending rising faster than trips. PPC Land reported that air and hotel order values gained 10% in the third quarter as bookings stalled, Criteo finds. "Growth is coming from more expensive trips rather than more bookings," the report says. By September, 86% of Criteo travel partners with consistent ad spend had recorded at least one booking referred by ChatGPT, up from 71% in April, a measure of spread rather than volume.

Agents for the sell side

Agents are reaching publisher ad operations. Alyssa Boyle reported in AdExchanger that Swivel wants to create agentic infrastructure for CTV. The startup, founded by Frans Vermeulen, formerly of FreeWheel, and the SpringServe co-founders Matt Dearborn, Rich Lin and Joe Hirsch, runs several agents covering budgeting, trafficking, pacing, yield management and reporting. Many publishers adopt only one or two so as not to disrupt their workflows. Hirsch said the Ad Context Protocol partly addresses fragmentation, letting publishers declare which agents may sell their inventory.

Browsers, regulators and the economy

Ad blocking is becoming more granular. PPC Land reported that Vivaldi 8.3 blocks ads and trackers at three strengths, set site by site. Released on November 5, the browser lets users choose light, strong or aggressive blocking per website and adds a Copy Sanitized Link function that strips tracking parameters, which could affect click attribution. "We aren't against respectful advertising," Vivaldi said. PPC Land estimated its user base at about 3.5 million.

Public sector AI faced a privacy test in Denmark. PPC Land reported that a Danish watchdog rejected a web notice for AI trained on 3,000 student aid files. Datatilsynet told the agency that runs Denmark's student support scheme that applicants whose sensitive health and income data trained the tool had to be told directly, not through a notice on its website, and that operating the tool needed a clearer legal basis. A law adding that basis took effect in July 2025.

The Bank of England measured what AI is doing to growth. PPC Land reported that AI accounts for nearly a fifth of UK growth in 2026, the Bank of England finds. Its November Monetary Policy Report found the gain comes mainly from firms that build, host and install AI rather than those using it; companies estimate AI raised their productivity about 0.5% over three years, with almost no effect on employment. The Monetary Policy Committee raised Bank Rate to 4% on November 4, driven mainly by energy prices.

Ukraine and Austria

Advertising in Ukraine is still running through a war. PPC Land reported that war damage cut ad budgets, 76% of Ukrainian agencies tell IAB Ukraine, against 24% of advertisers. In the third quarter, 48% of agencies and platforms reported cuts. Search was the most protected channel: none of the 40 agencies and platforms named it a first cut, and 78% called it essential. "Today, this is no longer just a matter of industry development, but also of its resilience and survival," one agency respondent said.

In Austria, audio habits are shifting between platforms. PPC Land reported that Amazon dropped to 27% of Austrian online audio users from 31% in 2025, while Spotify rose to 39% and Google's services, chiefly YouTube, held at 53%. Online audio reach grew for the first time since the study began in 2023, but podcast reach slipped to 42%, and acceptance of AI-generated advertising fell to 25% from 29%.

People

Television news moved its chairs. Mark Mwachiro reported for TVNewser that Carson Daly was named Saturday Today co-anchor from November 7, putting him on NBC News six days a week, while CNBC signed Jim Cramer to a new long-term deal that includes a premium subscription tier launching in 2027. And Eva Kis profiled Meerkat's Dustin Black, who makes an art of staying curious: the Minneapolis agency's new chief creative officer builds felt sculptures of fish, flowers and birds on nights and weekends, one of which spent a year at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. In a week when the open web counted how many people no longer arrive at its pages, there was something reassuring in work made by hand, one piece of felt at a time.