3 actions publishers are taking to survive a post-Google world

Kamiko McCoy (0:11)

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of The Digiday Podcast, a show for anybody wondering what publishers are actually doing in response to Google Zero. I'm Kamiko McCoy, Senior Marketing Reporter here at Digiday.

Tim Peterson (0:23)

And I'm Tim Peterson, Executive Editor, Video and Audio, Digiday Media. So Kamiko, what was it, two months ago when we did an episode, Case for and Against Google Zero, which I think were somehow required to, again, credit the Verge Editor-in-Chief, Neelay Patel, for coining the term Google Zero, which refers to this idea of with the rise of AI, and especially things like AI mode and AI overviews on Google, that search traffic from Google to publishers is declining and may potentially reach zero. Now, whether it'll actually ever reach actually zero is a whole other thing, but a couple months ago we had the episode breaking down the case for and against publishers cutting off Google in response to this Google Zero threat. I think it was in that episode where we teased, well, we might get some answers very soon about what publishers are gonna be doing about Google Zero because we in September had the Digiday Publishing Summit in the US with publishers and Google Zero was a big topic there. And then just this past week, we had our Media Strategies London event where publishers in the UK and Europe, I imagine similarly talked about Google Zero and what they're doing for this kind of post search landscape. But I have no actual idea what publishers said at Media Strategies London. Luckily, Jessica Davies, who is our Senior Media Editor, was there, hosted the event, she's joining us, as is Sara Guaglione, who is our Senior Media Reporter and hosted the Publishing Summit in the US in September. So, Jess and Sara, welcome back to the show.

Jessica Davies (2:06)

Thank you so much.

Sara Guaglione (2:08)

Yeah, great to be here.

Tim Peterson (2:10)

So, Sara, you joined us for that Case Foreign Against Google Zero episode where we laid out the case Foreign Against Publishers Blocking Google Zero. But the big question, the cliffhanger we had at the end of that episode is, well, what are publishers actually doing? And we looked to the Publishing Summit and then Media Strategies in London as areas where we would get some answers. At the Publishing Summit in September, did you get a sense of like what publishers are doing or what's changing at Publishers?

Sara Guaglione (2:43)

Yeah, definitely. I think sort of the overarching theme, which I think wouldn't surprise many people, is that publishers are trying to prepare for a potential Google Zero feature by not relying on Google search traffic, right? And what that actually looks like, I think really depends on publishers' different business models and things like that. But there were a few common themes, I would say. I think a big one was actually looking at the organizational structure of different publishing companies, and figuring out ways to reorganize them or expand certain parts of certain teams that deal with parts of the business or content or distribution to match the new era that we're in.

There's also a lot of conversations around trying to make revenue off of the new AI search era that we're in, and preparing for the growth of agentic audiences, I would say, compared to just having human visitors to the site, and figuring out ways to monetize that traffic or control it.

Tim Peterson (4:02)

Yeah. So I got to tag along to the publishing summit, and what was kind of refreshing and reassuring to me, also admittedly surprising, was there was a lot of hemming and hawing and existential questions of what do we do, what's the future of publishing. But there was also more of a pragmatism, I think, than I was expecting to hear there. Both, I feel like, in a bunch of the conversations, what was getting said on stage, then also behind closed doors, was publishers saying, we need to recalibrate what our business is, the size and scope of our business. And I think it was Esther from The Verge, who had said something along the lines of looking at Google search traffic as bonus traffic.

There's also just a lot more conversations about actual things publishers were doing for this post-Google landscape, like real tangible actions, which is what we're going to talk about today. But Jess, you just came off Media Strategies London. Was the conversation similar there? Was it more or less existential, more or less pragmatic?

Jessica Davies (5:16)

I would definitely say, I mean, I think your word is recalibration. I think that was a perfect way to describe it. It definitely felt like that time of shock is just gone.