You can’t ignore Google Zero anymore
TL;DR
Google and the web had a deal for years: Google indexes pages, and websites get oceans of traffic in return. That deal now looks dead, and the web is being forced to reckon with what happens when Google traffic dries up. On the Vergecast, David and Nilay discuss the week's Google Zero news, including Reddit's interest in exiting an AI training deal and publishers weighing whether to block Google's crawlers entirely.
Nauti's Take
Nauti sees an opportunity here too: once search traffic stops being a plan, publishers finally build direct channels — newsletters, communities, distribution they own. The risk is the transition, where reach collapses before the alternative carries any weight.
Small outlets with a loyal readership will weather that far better than pure SEO publishers.
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