The New Cost Of Search: Publishers Are Now Buying the Search Traffic They Used To Get For Free 

Publishers searching for an answer to their traffic woes appear to be including deep pockets and purse strings as part of their search.

According to research by Similarweb, “media companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars every month to buy the search traffic they used to get for free,” with paid-search spend amongst publishers in its Top 100 index up 41% more YoY  … and up 274% over the last 3 years.

 

Google Paid Search Becoming More Expensive 

According to data from the Tinuiti Digital Ads Benchmark Report, published Thursday, the acceleration of CPC growth from 1% in Q2 to 4% in Q3 2026 was primarily driven by two structural shifts in the advertising market. One of those drivers in the report pointed to Amazon pulling out of almost all U.S. Google Shopping ad auctions in mid-2025, which initially created a vacuum that artificially depressed CPC growth throughout early 2026 and kept click costs relatively flat. By Q3 2026, other giant ecommerce platforms increased or consolidated their presence in Google’s ad auctions. This massive influx of capital forced standard advertisers to bid significantly higher to maintain their impression share, according to the report.

 

AI Search Tools Cited A Made-Up Concept Within A Week, Paper Finds

ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, and Google AI each cited posts about a made-up concept within seven days of the posts going up, according to a paper from researchers at Fudan University. The researchers published the posts from ordinary accounts on nine sites the tested tools already cited often. 

 

ChatGPT Ads Target Your Phone Number, Email

OpenAI’s ads targeting is pretty creepy, and new research confirms spyware companies are delivering potent malware through advertising networks.