B Evidence Grade B Graded accuracy verified by the review judge Safe to Cite Current

33%

33% -- search referral decline for news sites (2026)

2026  · n=2,500  · Chartbeat

AI Overviews have reduced global search referrals to news sites by 33% according to Chartbeat data covering over 2,500 outlets.

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Attribution: Chartbeat View source
Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:  ·  How we verify data →
Source verified Evidence graded
Value
33%
Unit
Percentage
Data Vintage
2026
Entity
news sites
Sample Size
2,500
B
Strong, reliable evidence

Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.

60/100 confidence

Single source - not yet corroborated

Extraction
75
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
20
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Chartbeat Primary Tier B
https://www.365iwebdesign.co.uk/news/2026/01/30/uk-cma-google-ai-overviews-opt-out/ ↗
Confidence: 53/100 Vintage: 2026 Channel: Deep Crawl
Source Article
UK CMA Forces Google to Let Websites Opt Out of AI Overviews | 365i
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority on 28 January 2026 proposed that website publishers be allowed to opt out of having their content used in Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, without losing visibility in traditional search results. The conduct requirements, published under new powers in th…
Original Research
Chartbeat · Original study ↗

Chartbeat data covering over 2,500 outlets

Methodology documented
Industrymarketing
Plain Text
news sites: 33% search referral decline. Source: Chartbeat (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-overviews-news-referral-decline-2026
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<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-overviews-news-referral-decline-2026" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>33%</strong> -- search referral decline for news sites<br><small>Source: Chartbeat (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-overviews-news-referral-decline-2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
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