A year-end autopsy of digital publishing, streaming dominance, and why your traffic numbers look like they went through a paper shredder.
Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat this: 2025 was the year the internet’s economic model went from “questionable” to “actively on fire.”
If you spent the year watching your organic traffic nosedive while your server logs filled up with AI bots that contributed nothing but bandwidth bills—congratulations, you’re not alone. You’re also not imagining things.
Let’s break down what happened, why it matters, and whether we should all just pivot to interpretive dance.
Streaming Finally Won (And Broadcast TV Is Taking It Personally)
Before we get to the SEO carnage, let’s set the scene with some context about where attention actually went in 2025.
In June, streaming hit 46% of all U.S. television viewing. Broadcast TV? A pathetic 18.5%—dropping below 20% for the first time in recorded history. Cable limped along at 23.4%, desperately hoping sports rights would save it.
For perspective: streaming was at 26.2% just four years ago. That’s a nearly 20-point swing in the time it takes to watch three seasons of whatever Netflix is pushing this quarter.
YouTube alone now commands 12.5% of all television viewing. Not streaming. All television. A free, ad-supported platform is eating Netflix’s lunch while Netflix charges you $15.49/month to watch their lunch get eaten.
What this means for you: The eyeballs aren’t on websites. They’re on apps. They’re in walled gardens. They’re watching a guy restore vintage cars on YouTube instead of reading your 3,000-word guide to vintage car restoration.
The Zero-Click Apocalypse Is No Longer a Drill
Now let’s talk about why you’re actually here: your traffic tanked, and you want to know who to blame.
Good news: I have receipts.
According to Digital Bloom’s 2025 Organic Traffic Crisis Report, 60% of all Google searches in 2025 ended without a click. On mobile, it’s 77%. For news queries? A soul-crushing 69%.
But wait—it gets worse.
AI Overviews: Google’s Solution to a Problem Only Google Had
Remember when Google said AI Overviews would “enhance the search experience”? Turns out they enhanced it right into the ground—for publishers, anyway.
AI Overviews now appear on 13.14% of queries, double the rate from last year. And when they show up, the numbers are brutal:
- Organic CTR drops 65% (from 1.76% to 0.61%)
- Paid CTR drops 61% (from 1.08% to 0.42%)
Read that again. When Google’s AI answers the question, two-thirds of your clicks evaporate. Google essentially trained a model on your content, then used it to make sure nobody ever needs to visit your site.
It’s like teaching someone to cook, then watching them open a restaurant across the street with your recipes.
The Publisher Damage Report
Digiday’s analysis of the Digital Content Next study—covering 19 premium publishers including NYT, Condé Nast, and Vox—found a median 10% year-over-year decline in Google referral traffic. Non-news publishers got hit even harder at 14%.
The business impact is already landing:
- Business Insider: 21% staff reduction, citing 70% revenue sensitivity to traffic
- Dotdash Meredith: 3% session decline in Q1 from AI Overviews alone
- Overall search referrals: Down 6.7% YoY (from 12B to 11.2B visits)
This isn’t a blip. This is structural. Google’s incentive is to keep users in Search. Your incentive is to get them out. These are now fundamentally opposed.
