Publishers consider blocking Google as Condé Nast warns Pichai it expects search traffic to hit zero

Search traffic to 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 weighing whether to block Google's crawlers entirely. Condé Nast told Sundar Pichai directly that it assumes search traffic goes to zero. Google shipped Preferred Sources and Search Console AI reporting in response.