Ziff Davis reports 37% decline in Google referrals

Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah reported a 37% year-over-year decline in organic Google referrals during the third quarter, bringing the two-year drop to over 50%. Shah stated that the company is not planning on a search recovery and expects referrals to keep falling due to the disruption of search traffic by Google and LLMs. Despite search headwinds affecting tech and shopping properties, total revenue drop was mitigated by subscriptions, apps, and strong direct and map-heavy traffic at IGN. Open article →