AI Overviews killed overfishing.org – and it’s not alone

For 21 years, a single volunteer-run web site held its floor on the high of Google search outcomes for a number of the most vital environmental queries on the web. Then, someday within the fourth quarter of 2023, the site visitors began disappearing – not unexpectedly, however in a sample so exact it pointed to 1 trigger. At present, overfishing.org is gone.

A web site that outlasted its search engine

Pepijn, the Dutch operator of overfishing.org, introduced on February 25, 2024, that the location was shutting down after greater than 20 years of steady operation. In line with a post published that day on Mastodon, the location had served as an unbiased reference utilized by politicians, college students, documentary filmmakers, and researchers. It had no promoting. It carried no exterior social monitoring integrations. Each declare was correctly referenced.

At its peak, the location attracted greater than 5,000 distinctive guests on a single day and generated a continuing stream of electronic mail inquiries from college students, educators, and journalists. It was cited in textbooks, reviews, and displays. In line with Pepijn, it was additionally used to form nationwide and worldwide political statements on fisheries coverage. For sure key phrase searches, overfishing.org ranked above Wikipedia – a feat that took years of cautious content material stewardship to realize and keep.

None of that was sufficient.

The site visitors collapse, documented in actual time

In line with posts revealed on Mastodon in Might 2026, wherein Pepijn supplied detailed context to a thread that had resurfaced the February 2024 announcement, the site visitors loss adopted a particular sample. Within the interval Pepijn estimates as This fall 2023, natural customer numbers from the US started fluctuating in ways in which had no apparent clarification. On Monday and Tuesday, the location may see roughly 750 distinctive IP addresses – outlined as guests accessing two or extra pages. Then, for 2 days, the determine would drop to roughly 50. On Friday, it might get well to round 750 once more.

That oscillation was not random noise. It corresponded, based on Pepijn’s account, to Google testing its AI Overviews characteristic by area and by time interval. Each time Google activated the characteristic in a selected area, site visitors to overfishing.org from that area successfully disappeared. When the characteristic was turned off or not but lively, regular customer numbers returned. Ultimately, the low quantity turned everlasting.

“Each time Google enabled this in a area the site visitors to overfishing.org simply disappeared,” Pepijn wrote in a Might 22, 2026 submit.

The distinction with the earlier technology of Google options was specific. Google’s earlier “Fast solutions” snippets, lively because the 2010s, didn’t produce the identical impact. These snippets used excerpts and linked again to the unique supply. The AI Overviews system operates in a different way: it rewrites and synthesizes content material from a number of sources, and the hyperlinks it contains are, based on Pepijn, virtually invisible to customers. “The ‘AI summaries’ hyperlinks are ineffective as nothing is ever correctly quoted by this re-writing-machine,” the submit states.

What the location was – and what changed it

The scope of what overfishing.org lined helps clarify why the site visitors loss mattered past a single operator’s frustration. In line with Pepijn, the location contained roughly 300 particular person pages, some attracting 300 guests per day, others as few as 50 per yr. Content material included an introduction to overfishing as an idea, educating supplies, infographics, satellite tv for pc imagery of backside trawling within the Dutch Waddensea, and fish guides that customers consulted earlier than buying seafood. The location was explicitly designed to achieve most of the people – individuals who heard a time period on tv and opened a search engine to study extra.

What AI Overviews serves in response to those self same queries is, based on Pepijn, one thing qualitatively totally different. “The AI summaries on this matter do the other: they offer a false sense of high quality and are usually not actionable.” The priority is just not merely that much less site visitors arrives on the authentic web site. It’s that the substitute content material – synthesized from a number of sources, rewritten by a machine, and offered with out the curation and quotation self-discipline that distinguished overfishing.org – might actively mislead customers who imagine they’re receiving authoritative info.

This can be a structural drawback that extends properly past one web site. Small publishers lost 60% of search traffic over two years, based on Chartbeat information analyzed in a March 2026 report. The inflection level in that dataset arrived in late October 2024, when Google expanded AI Overviews to greater than 100 international locations – however the sample Pepijn describes on overfishing.org started earlier, in keeping with regional testing that preceded the worldwide rollout.

The numbers behind the sample

The information supporting Pepijn’s account has gathered from a number of unbiased sources. Ahrefs research comparing 300,000 searches from March 2024 with March 2025 discovered that when AI Overviews seem in search outcomes, the primary natural outcome loses a median of 34.5% of its clicks. For informational key phrases – exactly the class that dominated overfishing.org’s site visitors – the position-one click-through price fell from 0.073 in March 2024 to 0.026 in March 2025, based on the Ahrefs methodology.

A Pew Analysis Middle research revealed in July 2025 discovered that website link clicks fell by half when AI summaries appeared. Customers additionally ended their looking periods fully at a better price after encountering AI summaries – 26% of the time, in comparison with 16% with conventional search outcomes. And of these customers who did see supply citations inside AI Overviews, just one% clicked by to the underlying web sites.

The trajectory for whole internet site visitors is constant. Open web traffic has declined 46% over three years, based on information cited by Rand Fishkin of SparkToro. For each 1,000 Google searches in the US, solely 360 clicks go to exterior web sites, according to analysis tracked by PPC Land. Practically 60% of Google searches now finish with none click on to any exterior web site in any respect.

UK analysis revealed in November 2025 supplied sector-level element. A study by agency Tank analyzing 800 firms throughout 16 industries discovered that common month-to-month natural site visitors progress fell from 26.3% earlier than the AI search rollout to three.7% after it – a decline of twenty-two.6 proportion factors. Hospitality was the hardest-hit sector, recording detrimental progress of 6.7%. The analysis lined the interval from August 2022 by August 2025, offering three years of comparable information.

Google Search traffic to news publishers fell from 51% of referrals in 2023 to 27% by the fourth quarter of 2025, based on information from NewzDash. Conventional Google Search site visitors dropped from roughly 16% to 10% of whole referrals throughout all writer sorts in the course of the interval when AI Overviews expanded globally, based on Chartbeat figures analyzed by Press Gazette.

The structural argument

Pepijn’s account is notable not only for its specificity however for the argument it makes about what sort of internet content material can survive the present surroundings – and what can’t.

Industrial websites promoting merchandise have a transaction on the finish of the funnel that doesn’t rely fully on search site visitors. Giant media organizations have model recognition, publication subscribers, and app customers who arrive with out utilizing a search engine. However a web site like overfishing.org depended fully on search as its distribution mechanism, and on most of the people’s curiosity as its viewers. There was no product to promote. There was no subscriber record to fall again on. There was solely the second when somebody typed a query right into a search field and wanted a dependable reply.

That particular use case – verified, curated, non-commercial info delivered to curious folks by natural search – seems to be among the many most severely affected by the shift to AI-generated summaries. The overfishing case is uncommon solely in that its operator documented the collapse in actual time and in public, offering a stage of granularity that company publishers hardly ever match.

The purpose was not misplaced on others. Within the Mastodon thread sparked by the unique February 2024 announcement and the follow-up posts in Might 2026, Mastodon person Jim Winstead noticed that “Google’s use of it killing a web site about overfishing is just a bit too on the nostril.”

Wikipedia editor and contributor Amir Aharoni famous that Wikipedia itself is dependent upon specialised reference websites like overfishing.org for sourcing. With out these websites offering fastidiously vetted info, Wikipedia’s personal reliability is not directly weakened.

The misinformation dimension

There’s a secondary concern in Pepijn’s account that goes past site visitors economics. A web site like overfishing.org was designed to battle misinformation about fish inventory depletion – a subject the place industrial pursuits, nationwide fishing insurance policies, and public understanding routinely diverge. The location’s info was fastidiously referenced, often up to date, and intentionally non-commercial.

AI summaries on the identical matter, based on Pepijn’s evaluation, present a “false sense of high quality.” The issue is particular: synthesized outputs can sound authoritative whereas drawing on a large pool of sources of various reliability, with out the editorial judgment {that a} domain-expert curator applies. A general-purpose language mannequin has no explicit competence in distinguishing a fishing business foyer’s estimate of sustainable catch from a peer-reviewed fisheries science paper. A specialist editor does.

Pepijn additionally famous that sustaining accuracy required fixed repairs. The location’s roughly 300 pages contained info that modifications – fish inventory assessments, regulatory modifications, quota choices. “With out stewardship a web site like this may itself turn out to be the supply of misinformation it goals to battle,” a Might 25, 2026 submit famous. That recognition of editorial duty is just not one thing an AI abstract inherits when it absorbs and retransmits the content material.

Business context: the broader shutdown sample

Overfishing.org is just not an remoted case. A Bloomberg investigation published in April 2025 documented 25 publishers experiencing site visitors losses of 70% to 90%, with at the least three web sites whose operators had attended a Google summit in October 2024 subsequently shutting down fully. One DIY dwelling enchancment web site noticed show promoting income fall 65% within the yr following its site visitors collapse, representing tens of 1000’s of {dollars} in misplaced revenue.

The sample impacts totally different content material classes in a different way. Journey bloggers Dave Bouskill and Debra Corbeil skilled a 90% site visitors discount after AI Overviews started reproducing their specialised content material about Canadian slang. ClickUp’s blog fell from 1.19 million monthly organic visitors in January 2025 to fewer than 29,000 by April 2026 – a 97.6% decline throughout 15 months. These are companies with substantial assets. Impartial, volunteer-run reference websites haven’t any equal capability to soak up or reply to such losses.

The choice serps that some customers have proposed as substitutes supply restricted reduction. As customers in the identical Mastodon thread famous, DuckDuckGo attracts its outcomes from Microsoft Bing. Practically all various serps depend upon both Google’s or Bing’s underlying index. The structural dependence implies that no change within the search engine a person chooses essentially modifications the inducement construction that produced the unique drawback.

What stays

Pepijn up to date the overfishing.org area redirect in Might 2026 on the request of individuals following the thread. A Might 25, 2026 submit famous {that a} “very fundamental model” may finally be put again on-line, however “extra as a reminisce than an actual useful resource.” The 300-page useful resource, with its satellite tv for pc imagery, infographics, fish guides, and educating supplies, is just not coming again in its authentic kind.

The area continues to be registered. The content material, based on Pepijn, nonetheless exists. However with out the site visitors that made the trouble significant – with out the scholars who emailed their questions, the educators who constructed displays round it, the politicians who cited it in committee hearings – sustaining it might imply feeding info right into a system that not reliably delivers it to the individuals who want it.

“With that gone I do not simply wish to feed misinformation machine,” Pepijn wrote on Might 22, 2026.

That sentence describes one thing exact: a rational calculation made by somebody who had spent 20 years constructing one thing genuinely helpful, watched an algorithmic change make it successfully invisible, and concluded that the trouble was not justified by the end result. It’s a calculation that’s being made, in several varieties, by operators of specialised reference websites throughout many matters – websites that served because the supply layer for Wikipedia, for scholar analysis, for documentary filmmakers, and for the curious members of the general public who as soon as might kind a query right into a search engine and obtain a solution from a human who really knew.

Timeline

• 2003: Pepijn launches overfishing.org as an unbiased, non-commercial reference web site on fisheries depletion
• 2010s: Google introduces “Fast solutions” snippets, which excerpt and hyperlink again to supply web sites with out important site visitors impression on overfishing.org
• This fall 2023: Pepijn begins noticing site visitors anomalies, with US customer counts oscillating between roughly 750 on some days and 50 on others – later attributed to regional Google AI Overviews testing
• October 2024: Google expands AI Overviews to more than 100 countries, coinciding with a pointy inflection in writer site visitors information documented by Chartbeat
• February 25, 2024: Pepijn broadcasts the closure of overfishing.org on Mastodon, citing the collapse of search site visitors in a siloed web
• April 7, 2025: A Bloomberg investigation paperwork traffic losses of 70% to 90% across 25 independent publishers, with at the least three websites from a Google summit shutting down
• April 17, 2025: Ahrefs publishes analysis throughout 300,000 key phrases discovering AI Overviews reduce the first organic result’s clicks by an average of 34.5%
• July 22, 2025: Pew Analysis Middle publishes a research discovering web site hyperlink clicks fall by half when AI summaries seem, with only 1% of AI Overview interactions resulting in source link clicks
• October 30, 2025: Tank analysis finds UK organic traffic growth collapsed 86% following Google’s AI search rollout throughout 800 firms in 16 sectors
• March 17, 2026: Chartbeat information reveals small publishers lost 60% of search traffic over two years, with AI chatbots offering underneath 1% of substitute site visitors
• April 18, 2026: ClickUp’s blog documented at 97.6% traffic collapse from 1.19 million to fewer than 29,000 month-to-month guests in 15 months
• Might 14, 2026: SparkToro information cited in pre-orders for Zero Click on Advertising and marketing reveals open web traffic has fallen 46% in three years
• Might 22, 2026: Pepijn publishes an in depth thread on Mastodon explaining the mechanics of the site visitors collapse at overfishing.org, linking it explicitly to regional AI Overviews testing starting in This fall 2023
• Might 23, 2026: Pepijn restores the overfishing.org area redirect following requests from the Mastodon thread
• Might 25, 2026: Pepijn addresses questions on restoring the location, noting {that a} fundamental model might return as an archive however that the 300-page useful resource can’t be maintained with out significant readership

Abstract

Who: Pepijn, a Dutch operator who ran overfishing.org for 21 years as a volunteer-maintained, non-commercial reference web site utilized by politicians, college students, educators, documentary filmmakers, and researchers.

What: The location shut down on February 25, 2024, following a sustained collapse in natural search site visitors that Pepijn hyperlinks to Google’s regional testing and subsequent international rollout of AI Overviews. The characteristic synthesizes and rewrites content material from supply web sites, offering solutions instantly inside search outcomes and lowering the inducement for customers to go to authentic sources. Visitors from the US dropped from roughly 750 distinctive guests per day to round 50 on days when the characteristic was lively, finally turning into everlasting.

When: Visitors anomalies started in This fall 2023. The location formally closed on February 25, 2024. Pepijn supplied detailed public context concerning the closure’s causes in a Mastodon thread starting Might 22, 2026.

The place: overfishing.org was accessible globally. Its major viewers was most of the people utilizing Google and different main serps. The Mastodon dialogue happened on mastodon.on-line, a server operated by Mastodon GmbH.

Why: The case issues as a result of it illustrates a structural shift in how serps deal with informational queries. Non-commercial reference websites that relied on search as their sole distribution mechanism – websites with no promoting, no subscriber base, and no product to promote – seem significantly susceptible to AI Overviews. The sample is in keeping with information from Ahrefs, Chartbeat, Pew Analysis, and SparkToro displaying systematic declines in clicks to exterior web sites throughout all classes of natural search. The closure of overfishing.org removes a useful resource that supported Wikipedia sourcing, instructional curricula, and public consciousness of fisheries depletion, changing human-curated professional content material with AI-synthesized summaries whose accuracy and actionability the unique web site operator describes as inferior.