GRV Media executive chairman Vic Daniels speaks out against Google's recent actions on search and Google Discover, which he feels have resulted in the company likely to kill the open web
Recent Google changes will result in a 'jobs bloodbath' in online publishing and supporting infrastructure in Q1 2026.
Online publishing is at a critical point as Google has clearly crossed the Rubicon and decided to change the nature of the internet to favour its own products and bottom line - and simply because it can. In my opinion, Google no longer even pretends to care about online publishers or the industry as a whole.
With referral traffic to publishers from traditional Google Search having fallen, in some rare cases by up to 90%, over the last two years, many publishers were only kept alive by referral traffic from Google Discover, a platform that allowed readers to be in control of the content they would see.
This has now changed. Google Discover is now full of AI Overviews, ads, Google-owned YouTube videos, and X posts (Google has an ad deal with X). Readers are telling us that their Discover feeds have become nothing more than a Google propaganda product, and that Google has lost sight of what its users actually want to see.
GRV Media, once a poster child for small/medium-sized online publishers, has had to let 60 content creators go in the last four months, as it cut costs by a third. Google clearly has a massive influence on the future of the internet, and surely, as a monopoly in many jurisdictions, it has a responsibility to the wider online publishing ecosystem.
Having seemingly decided to move solely in its own interest, however, I believe that the internet as we know it will be gone during the first few months of 2026. Every single small/medium-sized publisher that I have spoken to claims to have recently lost at least 50% of its traffic from Google, and plans job cuts in Q1, unless things change. GRV Media has gone from 112,000,000 pageviews in July to 32,000,000 last month. In my view, Google's actions have broken the internet, and there is currently no financially sustainable business model for the smaller players.
What can be done to counter Google's recent moves? Clearly, regulation is required to protect the industry, and many more publishers and others are instituting or joining lawsuits against Google. But this could all take years to play out. For many, it will all be too late. In the meantime, many publishers are preparing for Google Zero by implementing a variety of strategies to ensure more traffic is driven directly to their own sites.
This includes email newsletters, notifications, more use of social and video, and obtaining referrals from apps and aggregators. GRV Media has also launched its new TalkingPoints initiative, which is an editorial-led sports fan engagement platform. TalkingPoints has got off to a strong start, with over 3,000 fan sign-ups in less than three weeks.
The consequences of Google's actions are dire. The industry, by and large, won't increase headcount in the coming months; there will be fewer work experience programmes and internships available for students, and there will be fewer opportunities for graduates to enter the industry in the short term. The UK government will also suffer, as there will be more people requiring support due to job losses, and the exchequer will be robbed of valuable tax revenues, as companies close, sustain losses or see significantly reduced profits. It's a real mess out there.
