Publishers rebuild for the post-Google era

USA Today Co. is forming a new audience and digital production team, with layoffs attached, and The New York Times created a role overseeing AI and off-platform discovery, as publishers move from SEO tweaks to full reorgs.

The crux

The search referral decline has stopped being a traffic problem and become an org-chart problem, and publishers are restructuring around off-platform and AI distribution.

Sell-side read

Audience teams built for search are being repriced; the publishers that win will own first-party audience and direct relationships instead of rented Google traffic.

Watch

Google's final behavioural remedies and the 30-day window for a proposed final judgment.