Publishers weigh blocking Google's crawlers as Condé Nast tells Pichai it assumes search traffic goes to zero

Search traffic to some publishers fell over 40% year-over-year through June 2026, per Semrush data cited by Nieman Lab. Publishers are now modeling a zero-click future and considering blocking Google's crawlers entirely. Condé Nast told Sundar Pichai directly that it assumes search traffic will go to zero. Google has shipped Preferred Sources and Search Console AI reporting in response.