https://growtika.com/blog/tech-media-collapse Growtika[logo-white] LET'S TALK Home Solutions Use Cases Sectors By Role Resources LET'S TALK 1. Home 2. Blog 3. Tech Media Traffic Collapse Original Research The Internet's Most-Read Tech Publications Have Lost 58% of Their Google Traffic Since 2024 We tracked the organic search traffic of CNET, Wired, The Verge, TechRadar, and six others from early 2024 to today. Combined, they've lost 65 million monthly visits. Some lost over 90%. By Yuval HaleviFebruary 20268 min read At their peaks, ten major tech publications pulled a combined 112 million organic visits per month from Google in the US. By January 2026, that number had fallen to 47 million. All ten sites are down, though not by equal amounts. Some lost 30%. Others lost over 90%. Loading chart... Growtika TL;DR * 10 major tech publications lost a combined 65M monthly organic visits since their peaks. That's a 58% decline. * Digital Trends: 8.5M - 265K (-97%). ZDNet: 7.6M - 769K (-90%). The Verge: 5.3M - 790K (-85%). * Even the least affected sites are down significantly: CNET lost 47%, Tom's Guide lost 50%, Wired lost 62%. * NerdWallet lost 73% (25M - 6.8M) and Healthline lost 50% (111M - 56M), suggesting the pattern extends beyond tech. * The steepest declines started in mid-2025, coinciding with the expansion of Google's AI Overviews. Methodology We pulled monthly US organic traffic estimates from Ahrefs for ten major English-language tech publications from February 2024 through January 2026. For each site, we identified the peak traffic month and compared it to January 2026 (the most recent complete month). All figures are Ahrefs estimates for the US market. Site-by-Site Breakdown 112M Combined peak monthly traffic 47M Combined traffic, January 2026 -58% Average decline Publication Peak Traffic Peak Month Jan 2026 Decline Digital Trends 8,530,891 Mar 2024 264,861 -97% ZDNet 7,610,480 Feb 2024 768,792 -90% The Verge 5,322,037 Feb 2024 790,002 -85% HowToGeek 1,974,331 Feb 2024 293,898 -85% TechRadar 15,577,298 Jul 2024 4,045,783 -74% Wired 7,754,067 Nov 2024 2,976,994 -62% Tom's Guide 16,013,790 Jul 2024 7,986,572 -50% CNET 20,294,300 Nov 2024 10,655,803 -47% PCMag 12,667,236 Jul 2025 7,449,728 -41% Mashable 16,114,803 May 2024 11,331,018 -30% Sorted by decline percentage. All figures are estimated US organic traffic from Ahrefs. Key Stats * 65M monthly visits lost across ten publications in under two years * Digital Trends lost 97% of its traffic -- from 8.5M to 265K monthly visits, the steepest decline in the dataset * Four publications combined (2.1M) get less traffic than the r/ ChatGPT subreddit alone (4.68M) * TechRadar's loss (11.5M) exceeds the current traffic of Wired, The Verge, ZDNet, HowToGeek, and Digital Trends combined (5.1M) * Healthline alone lost 55M visits -- more than all ten tech publications currently have combined (47M) * NerdWallet (NRDS) lost 73% of its organic traffic -- from 25M to 6.8M monthly visits as a publicly traded company Most of the Damage Happened After Mid-2025 For most of these publications, the traffic curves held through early 2025 and then dropped sharply in the second half of the year. The monthly data makes the timing visible. Monthly organic traffic: the four steepest declines Estimated US organic visits per month, Feb 2024 to Jan 2026. Hover for exact figures. Mar 24May 24Jul 24Sep 24Nov 24Jan 25Mar 25May 25Jul 25Sep 25Nov 25Jan 2604.0M8.0M12.0M16.0M * TechRadar (-74%) * Digital Trends (-97%) * ZDNet (-90%) * The Verge (-85%) Growtika TechRadar peaked in July 2024 at 15.6 million monthly visits and fell to 4 million by January 2026. Digital Trends went from 8.5 million in March 2024 to 265,000, a 97% decline. Not All Sites Declined Equally The ten sites fall into roughly three groups when sorted by severity. Down 85% or more: Digital Trends, ZDNet, HowToGeek, The Verge These four sites lost enough traffic that their search-dependent revenue models face serious questions. Digital Trends went from 8.5M to 265K monthly visits. ZDNet, which was one of the larger enterprise tech publications online, dropped from 7.6M to 769K. HowToGeek is worth noting specifically. Its content was predominantly step-by-step how-to guides: "how to take a screenshot on Windows," "how to change your DNS settings," etc. That's exactly the type of query Google's AI Overviews now answer directly in the search results without requiring a click. The site lost 85% of its search traffic. Peak vs. January 2026: traffic lost by each publication Estimated US monthly organic visits. Hover for exact figures. 05.5M11.0M16.5M22.0MCNETMashableTom's GuideTechRadarPCMagDigitalTrendsWiredZDNetThe VergeHowToGeek * Peak traffic * Jan 2026 traffic Growtika Down 47-74%: TechRadar, Wired, Tom's Guide, CNET These four still have substantial traffic but have lost roughly half or more since their peaks. TechRadar went from 15.6M to 4M. CNET, the largest of the group, dropped from 20.3M to 10.7M. CNET had already been dealing with credibility damage from its AI-generated articles controversy in early 2024. Then came Google's product review algorithm changes, followed by AI Overviews reducing click-through on the informational queries that drove much of its traffic. Down 30-41%: Mashable, PCMag Mashable went from 16.1M to 11.3M (-30%). PCMag peaked later than most -- in July 2025 at 12.7M -- and dropped to 7.4M by January 2026 (-41%). Both sites still operate at scale. Why these two fared better than the others isn't entirely clear from traffic data alone. Mashable's content skews more toward entertainment and culture, which may be harder for AI to summarize. PCMag has strong product-specific review traffic. But that's speculative. Same Pattern in Finance and Health We checked two of the largest publishers outside tech to see if the pattern held. Publication Category Peak Traffic Jan 2026 Decline NerdWallet Personal finance 25,056,888 6,803,920 -73% Healthline Health / medical 111,338,257 55,820,936 -50% NerdWallet is publicly traded (NRDS) and its business depends on converting search visitors into financial product referrals. It went from 25M monthly organic visits to 6.8M, a 73% decline. Healthline lost 55 million monthly visits, going from 111M to 56M. That's more traffic lost by a single site than the entire tech media category combined. Possible Explanations We can't prove causation from traffic curves alone, but three developments overlap with the decline timeline. First, Google rolled out AI Overviews broadly starting in mid-2024. For informational queries like "how to change DNS settings" or "best wireless earbuds 2026," Google now generates an answer directly in the search results. The user gets what they need without clicking through to a publisher. The sites most dependent on these queries (HowToGeek, Digital Trends, ZDNet) are the ones with the steepest drops. Second, Reddit has gained ranking position for commercial "best X" keywords that historically belonged to these publications. In a separate analysis, we found anonymous Reddit posts ranking in the top 3 for keywords like "best screen recorders," "best free VPN," and "best wireless earbuds under $200." Third, a growing number of users are skipping Google entirely for product research, going directly to ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. There's no reliable public data on how large this shift is yet, but it represents traffic that never enters the search funnel at all. It's likely some combination of all three. The timing of the steepest declines (second half of 2025) coincides with AI Overviews expanding to more query types and AI assistants reaching broader adoption. Raw Data: Monthly Traffic for All Ten Sites Full monthly organic traffic estimates for each publication, February 2024 through January 2026. Month CNET Tom's TechRadar Digital The Verge ZDNet Guide Trends Feb 13,802,351 8,568,233 7,829,401 7,700,949 5,322,037 7,610,480 2024 Mar 14,056,758 9,712,685 9,579,511 8,530,891 4,279,257 6,853,929 2024 Apr 16,659,423 10,537,850 11,811,937 6,197,537 4,833,403 6,725,549 2024 May 20,234,379 14,070,586 13,097,564 5,907,347 3,787,933 4,615,543 2024 Jun 20,219,141 15,560,640 13,867,491 6,050,149 3,683,688 3,537,135 2024 Jul 19,581,872 16,013,790 15,577,298 6,138,865 3,625,655 4,074,793 2024 Aug 18,507,863 14,753,188 15,283,408 5,031,362 3,256,722 4,085,538 2024 Sep 18,966,179 14,462,481 14,508,483 3,016,031 3,299,569 4,105,952 2024 Oct 19,390,527 14,364,137 12,807,239 2,426,441 2,985,709 3,816,738 2024 Nov 20,294,300 15,993,202 15,324,834 2,748,185 3,046,460 5,207,106 2024 Dec 16,065,464 14,301,908 13,566,064 3,010,674 2,424,885 3,124,594 2024 Jan 16,669,933 12,410,672 11,535,517 2,616,015 2,458,832 2,670,747 2025 Feb 16,943,407 12,133,886 10,139,597 1,700,666 2,422,789 2,459,003 2025 Mar 17,741,566 11,473,009 8,836,252 1,190,869 1,860,685 2,576,403 2025 Apr 16,804,845 11,494,629 8,143,339 691,841 1,978,756 2,859,929 2025 May 14,956,131 11,671,023 7,809,370 598,839 1,657,207 2,847,849 2025 Jun 13,378,476 10,063,899 6,465,955 614,946 1,196,643 2,236,170 2025 Jul 14,780,240 9,648,021 6,878,289 601,485 1,211,517 1,331,110 2025 Aug 14,237,958 9,311,091 6,148,342 530,548 1,083,174 968,123 2025 Sep 12,260,518 9,509,067 6,320,467 504,976 997,188 923,913 2025 Oct 11,497,795 9,039,513 4,919,562 339,553 794,725 721,173 2025 Nov 10,930,545 10,300,990 5,821,057 391,447 1,230,951 1,140,753 2025 Dec 10,642,423 7,771,564 4,941,017 308,296 986,485 803,314 2025 Jan 10,655,803 7,986,572 4,045,783 264,861 790,002 768,792 2026 Month Mashable PCMag Wired HowToGeek Feb 2024 9,400,731 9,537,448 5,523,064 1,974,331 Mar 2024 14,035,492 9,457,559 6,477,535 1,713,756 Apr 2024 14,535,453 8,940,377 7,001,671 1,531,428 May 2024 16,114,803 7,655,723 5,974,118 1,643,313 Jun 2024 13,028,433 6,354,480 5,135,765 1,636,132 Jul 2024 11,436,357 7,118,765 6,247,987 1,649,525 Aug 2024 10,817,802 7,715,094 6,128,515 1,485,446 Sep 2024 10,612,495 9,118,342 7,038,349 1,507,896 Oct 2024 10,110,220 9,377,344 7,000,807 1,462,014 Nov 2024 10,151,394 10,487,432 7,754,067 1,467,094 Dec 2024 10,330,064 10,241,706 6,191,710 1,493,316 Jan 2025 10,664,380 9,871,695 4,869,102 1,301,888 Feb 2025 11,697,365 8,768,448 4,715,258 1,224,591 Mar 2025 12,385,378 9,428,404 5,015,869 1,062,844 Apr 2025 13,574,935 9,605,043 5,140,600 977,853 May 2025 12,911,220 9,811,982 4,658,824 856,014 Jun 2025 11,875,561 7,589,124 3,136,665 753,705 Jul 2025 13,219,303 12,667,236 3,375,514 851,230 Aug 2025 13,970,097 10,343,209 3,948,057 571,443 Sep 2025 13,138,387 7,275,747 3,841,198 449,365 Oct 2025 12,668,102 5,533,471 3,939,513 322,779 Nov 2025 11,590,333 5,734,964 4,440,363 319,852 Dec 2025 11,745,707 6,978,806 3,713,650 304,151 Jan 2026 11,331,018 7,449,728 2,976,994 293,898 Summary Ten major tech publications lost a combined 65 million monthly Google visits between their peaks and January 2026. Four lost over 85% of their traffic. The same pattern appears in personal finance (NerdWallet, -73%) and health publishing (Healthline, -50%). The steepest declines coincide with the expansion of AI Overviews, increased Reddit rankings for commercial keywords, and growing use of AI assistants for product research. Yuval Halevi Yuval Halevi Helping SaaS companies and developer tools get cited in AI answers since before it was called "GEO." 10+ years in B2B SEO, 50+ cybersecurity and SaaS tools clients. Company * About Us * Blog * GEO HubNew * Contact Solutions & Use Cases * GEO Marketing * AI Search SEO * ChatGPT SEO * Perplexity SEO * SaaS Not on ChatGPT * Competitors Cited * AI Visibility Audit * Entity Optimization Sectors * Tech * Cybersecurity * Fintech * AI Top Content * FeaturedLLM Visibility Guide * SEO After LLMs * ChatGPT Recommends Competitors * Breaking SEO Best Practices Not Your Typical Bottom Menu "A snake game in a footer? Bold move." Score: 0Best: 0 PR Ready? Play ^ Tap to move Use arrow keys Growtika SEO & GEO agency for B2B SaaS. We make AI recommend you. Top Product MarketingClutch (c) 2026 Growtika.com | LLM Sitemap Privacy PolicyTerms of Service CNET