Executive Summary:
A report by TollBit reveals that AI-powered search engines from companies like OpenAI and Perplexity are significantly underperforming in driving referral traffic to publishers when compared to traditional Google search. Instead of boosting reader engagement, AI search engines send 96% less referral traffic to news sites and blogs. Additionally, the data indicates that the rate at which these AI companies scrape web content has increased significantly, raising concerns among publishers.
Key Points:
- AI companies have claimed they would enhance referral traffic to publishers, but data contradicts this promise.
- AI search engines send 96% less referral traffic than Google, causing publishers to lose potential income.
- OpenAI, Perplexity, and others have dramatically increased their scraping activity, averaging 2 million instances in Q4 of the previous year.
- The report analyzed 160 websites, noting each page was scraped around seven times on average.
References:
- TollBit report (exclusive to Forbes)
- Illustration by Fernando Capeto for Forbes; Graphics by Cherezoff/Getty Images
- User-provided context: New Data Shows Just How Badly OpenAI And Perplexity Are Screwing Over Publishers
12ft.io Link: https://12ft.io/https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/03/03/openai-perplexity-ai-search-traffic-report/
Archive.org Link: New Data Shows Just How Badly OpenAI And Perplexity Are Screwing Over Publishers
Original Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/03/03/openai-perplexity-ai-search-traffic-report/
User Message: New Data Shows Just How Badly OpenAI And Perplexity Are Screwing Over Publishers
for more on see the post on bypassing methods