Facing publisher warnings about traffic declines, Google is updating its AI-powered search results in India to feature news website links more prominently and increase user engagement with linked content.
- Google boosts prominence of news and website links in AI search results.
- Publishers report a 40% drop in Google-driven traffic from July 2025 to 2026.
- Link carousels and preferred source prioritization expand globally.
What happened
Google announced an update to its AI search experience that increases the visibility and placement of links to external websites and news articles within AI-generated search content. This update includes more frequent and higher positioning of contextual links and an expanded worldwide rollout of link carousels displaying headlines and images beneath AI Overviews.
This shift follows trends begun in 2024 with Google introducing AI Overviews—summarized content replacing some traditional search links—and further enhancements in 2025 through AI Mode which offered deeper, more comprehensive AI-generated answers with additional links in a separate window.
Why it matters
Several studies and publishers have reported a significant decline in traffic from Google searches since the introduction of AI summaries, which tend to reduce user clicks on the originating websites. Data from consultancy Chartbeat highlights a 40 percent drop in traffic to news sites nationally between July 2025 and July 2026.
The update aims to address these concerns by making links more visible and engaging, providing users easier access to original sources including social media and forums, and prioritizing links from preferred sites a user has previously identified, potentially helping publishers regain some lost interaction.
What to watch next
The efficacy of Google’s changes in reversing or slowing the decline in publisher referral traffic will be closely monitored, especially in markets like India where digital news consumption is critical and growing. How users respond to more prominent link placements and expanded carousels will inform future AI search iterations.
Additionally, regulatory bodies and publisher groups such as France’s Apig that have voiced concerns about AI summarization’s fairness and compliance with agreements will likely scrutinize Google's adaptations. The company’s approach to balancing AI answers with source visibility may set precedents for AI-enabled search globally.