Credible Content Blog

Table of contents

• The brutal numbers – yes, Google traffic is down
• The misconception – AI gives answers, so content is dead

Everywhere you look, people are screaming the same thing: “AI has killed content. There’s no point in writing blogs anymore.”

Business owners are panicking. You’ve probably heard it in your own circles. Maybe you’ve even thought it yourself. Google traffic is going down. ChatGPT and Perplexity are answering everything directly. And if users don’t even need to click on websites, why bother spending money or time on content?

It sounds logical. But it’s wrong. Dead wrong.

Here’s the reality: if you stop writing and publishing, you don’t just lose clicks – you lose your voice. You lose visibility. You vanish from the very ecosystem that AI depends on to give answers.

Yes, it’s true. Traffic from Google search has dropped. Studies show organic website traffic losses range anywhere from 1% to 25%. Publishers and media houses have taken the biggest hit, with some reporting drops as steep as 50%.

Google’s AI Overviews have cut click-through rates by 15% to 34.5% for many top-ranking links. And around 60% of searches now end in “zero-clicks.” Users don’t need to leave the results page. They get what they need right there.

On the surface, these numbers sound like a death sentence. Do you know what the good thing is? People are still looking. They’re still searching. They’re still evaluating. They’re still choosing who to trust, who to work with, who to buy from.

And where do AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity get their information from? Not from thin air. Not from some magic well of infinite knowledge. They get it from websites like yours. From blogs. From case studies. From product pages. From the content you publish.

So let’s cut through the noise. Blogging and publishing are not outdated. They’re not optional. They’re not “something we used to do before AI took over.” They’re the foundation of how your business is found, trusted, and remembered – by Google, by AI tools, and most importantly, by your customers.

Think about it this way. Imagine you run a coaching business. If you stop writing, what happens when a potential client searches for “business coach for leadership teams”? ChatGPT will not suddenly invent your name. It will recommend the coaches who are actively publishing content – the ones feeding the machine with fresh knowledge. If you’re not publishing, you’re invisible. Period.

That’s why this panic around AI replacing content is dangerous. It’s lulling business owners into thinking they can just give up, stop publishing, and somehow still be found. That is not how it works. If you vanish from your own website, you vanish everywhere else.

The question isn’t “Does writing and publishing still matter in the time of AI?” The question is: “Can your business survive if you stop?”

The brutal numbers – yes, Google traffic is down

Let’s not sugarcoat it. The numbers are ugly. If you run a business and you’re staring at your analytics dashboard wondering why your website traffic is bleeding, you are not imagining things.

Studies confirm what many already fear: organic website traffic losses from Google search range from 1% to 25%. That’s the general average. But if you are in publishing or media, the drop is even steeper – some sites are reporting up to a 50% decline since late 2024. Why? Because Google rolled out AI Overviews, and users no longer need to click to get answers.

Here’s another painful truth: for many keywords, Google’s AI Overviews have reduced click-through rates by 15% to 34.5%. Imagine you’re ranking number one on Google, you worked for years to get there, you invested in SEO, backlinks, content. And then overnight, you see your clicks cut by a third, not because your ranking dropped, but because the AI box at the top handed out the answer before anyone could even see your link.

And it doesn’t stop there. Roughly 60% of Google searches now result in zero-clicks. That means six out of ten times, the user never leaves the search page. They find their answer right there, served by AI. For news publishers, the hit has been brutal – a 7% median year-on-year decline in traffic. For non-news brands, the decline is even worse at 14%.

If you’re a business owner, you might be thinking, “Well, that’s it. Why waste money on content if Google won’t send me the clicks?” That’s the wrong conclusion.

Look closely at the numbers. While ChatGPT and Perplexity are rising, they are still not replacing Google. ChatGPT’s share of global search volume is just 0.21% as of August 2025. Google still commands 41% of global web traffic. The gap is massive. Yes, it is closing incrementally, but Google is still the king.

What these numbers actually tell you is this: the landscape is shifting, but the game is still on. People are searching differently, but they are still searching. Traffic patterns are changing, but they are not disappearing.

And here’s the kicker – whether people search on Google, ChatGPT, or Perplexity, the answers still come from content published on websites. If you stop publishing, you take yourself out of the pool completely. You are not just losing clicks, you are erasing your business from the very sources that power AI answers.

The brutal numbers don’t mean you stop publishing. They mean you have to be smarter. Smarter about the topics you choose. Smarter about the intent behind the keywords. Smarter about how you position your content so it feeds both Google and AI tools.

So yes, the numbers are brutal. But the bigger truth is this: only those who keep publishing will continue to exist in this new search ecosystem. Stop now, and you’ll be history.

The misconception – AI gives answers, so content is dead

This is the myth that is destroying businesses right now. Owners look at the stats, see their traffic dipping, and jump to a lazy conclusion: “AI is giving the answers, so there’s no point in publishing content anymore.”

Wrong. Completely wrong.

AI does not pull answers out of thin air. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews – all of them need something to chew on. And what do they chew on? Your content. My content. The millions of pages, blogs, guides, and articles published on the web.

If businesses stop publishing, the system collapses. AI is like a parrot. It repeats what it finds. If there’s nothing fresh, it regurgitates stale, outdated information. That should scare you more than any drop in Google traffic.

But here’s where the misconception gets dangerous. Many business owners convince themselves that since AI is answering questions, their website doesn’t matter anymore. That’s business suicide. Because when ChatGPT suggests a product, a service, or an expert, it’s not creating one out of thin air. It is recommending based on what’s published online.

Think about it. If you run a coaching business and someone asks ChatGPT, “Who are the top business coaches for leadership?” The AI doesn’t invent new names. It picks from what’s available on the web. If your website is silent, if your blog is dead, if your content stopped in 2022, do you think you’ll show up? Not a chance.

The same goes for any industry. A small accounting firm. A boutique jewelry store. A legal consultant. If you stop publishing, you stop feeding the machine. And if you’re not feeding it, your competitors are. Guess who gets recommended? Not you.

So, let’s kill this misconception right now. AI is not a replacement for your content. It is a distributor of your content. It doesn’t generate credibility, it amplifies credibility. And credibility only exists if you have something published that proves you’re worth trusting.

Here’s the blunt truth: stop writing and you don’t just lose Google clicks – you lose your existence in AI results. You lose your chance to be considered at all.

So the next time someone tells you, “AI has made publishing content useless,” ask them one simple question: “Where do you think AI gets its answers from?” The silence that follows will tell you everything.