{"slug": "people-inc-ceo-were-not-turning-off-google-crawlers-yet", "title": "People Inc. CEO: We’re not turning off Google crawlers yet", "summary": "People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel said the company will not block Google's crawlers despite wanting control over content, because it still depends on Google search referrals for traffic and revenue. Google search accounts for 21% of People Inc.'s traffic, down from 25% last quarter, and the company saw a 40% year-over-year decline in Google search traffic. Non-session-based revenue grew 16% year over year to $125 million in Q2 2026, representing 43% of total digital revenue, up from 39% in Q2 2025.", "body_md": "People Inc.’s CEO Neil Vogel said the company won’t block Google’s crawlers — not because execs don’t want to, but because they don’t want to lose out on any potential referral traffic.\n\nIn a company earnings call on Tuesday, Vogel voiced a dilemma shared by many in the publishing industry, who want to block Google’s AI crawler to have control over their content but fear it would jeopardize the Google search referrals they still depend on. Most publishers are still too dependent on Google referral traffic for their audience, content discovery and revenue to risk cutting off its crawlers.\n\n“If we were to turn off AI, we would turn off search. And as [Tim Quinn, CFO at People Inc.] said, we are nearly on the other side of search being a material driver of value for us. But we’re not there yet. So, we’re clearly not turning this off now. But it is a tool that we can use, and it is something we will constantly be looking at,” Vogel said.\n\nAbout 21% of People Inc.’s traffic comes from Google search, Vogel said. That’s down [from 25% last quarter](https://ir.people-incorporated.com/static-files/542bd22e-3cfc-4de1-aef9-62b5c5d48fcc). People Inc. says it’s seen a 22% year-over-year decline in “core sessions” (unique visitors to People Inc.’s core brands), including a 40% year-over-year decline in Google search traffic.\n\n“At the moment, scale definitely tips in the favor of maintaining the status quo. But this is a trade off we’ll monitor. Now, we’re not like galloping on a high horse trying to make a point here. What we’re really trying to do is just get to a fair economic deal for the use of our content. We will use all the tools at our disposal to do that. We’ll obviously be economically sensible in how we do that,” Vogel said.\n\nThe debate Vogel refers to here is a live one. AI summaries are eating into the referral traffic Google once sent back in exchange for crawling their content. Most publishers still can’t afford to cut that off since it’s too tied to audience, discovery and revenue.\n\nBut it’s not one they can dodge. Blocking Google’s crawlers is one lever publishers have to force a fairer deal. It’s also a risk because less search visibility means fewer impressions to sell against. So most are stuck doing both — trying to diversify away from Google while still letting it in the door. That’s the bind Vogel described on the company’s earnings call.\n\nHowever, Quinn noted ad rates have gone up “significantly,” helping People Inc. make the shift to its non-session-based businesses to [become less dependent on Google search](https://digiday.com/media/media-briefing-a-solid-q4-gives-publishers-breathing-room-as-they-build-revenue-beyond-search/). The publisher is packaging session-based and non-session-based ads into programs [that include web, social and events](https://digiday.com/media/how-people-inc-is-prioritizing-traffic-and-revenue-diversification-to-prepare-for-ai-era/), for example, he continued.\n\n“While our sessions are down, our rates are up significantly. Our rates are up as a function of the quality content and the performance of our sales,” Quinn said.\n\nAt People Inc., non-session-based revenue (ad revenue from social or native campaigns, events, sponsorships, emails, ad targeting tool D/Cipher and licensing) grew 16% year over year in Q2.\n\nNon-session-based revenue grew as a percentage of People Inc.’s total digital revenue, from 39% in Q2 2025 to 43% in Q2 2026 — from $108 million in Q2 2025 to $125 million in Q2 2026.\n\n“This is the growth dynamic for the foreseeable future. Non-sessions growth was driven by Apple News licensing, including our AI partnerships, social programs, events, and D/Cipher. Non-session-based revenue is anchored in our brand strength. We are creating more premium content in more formats more efficiently than we ever have,” Vogel said.\n\nMeanwhile, session-based revenue as a percentage of the publisher’s total digital revenue decreased year over year, from 61% in Q2 20225 to 57% in Q2 2026. This business remained flat year over year, due to flat ad revenue in the quarter, according to Quinn.\n\n“We’re clearly closer to the other side of it, but we’re not out the other side of it, and you can see the impact of declining sessions in our numbers,” Vogel said.\n\n### More in Media\n\n####\n[\nWTF is a stealth crawler? ](https://digiday.com/media/wtf-is-a-stealth-crawler/)\n\nAs AI bot traffic surges, lawmakers are cracking down on stealth crawlers, which scrape publisher content while masking who they are.\n\n####\n[\nAs Hollywood studios chase creator culture, ownership gets complicated ](https://digiday.com/media/as-hollywood-studios-chase-creator-culture-ownership-gets-complicated/)\n\nCopyright claims and IP ownership fights show just how complicated Hollywood’s creator courtship could get.\n\n####\n[\nHow a fitness creator built her own global wellness platform ](https://digiday.com/media/how-a-fitness-creator-built-her-own-global-wellness-platform/)\n\nGabby George leveraged her social media success into a subscription-based fitness platform to diversify revenue.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/people-inc-ceo-were-not-turning-off-google-crawlers-yet", "canonical_source": "https://digiday.com/media/people-inc-ceo-were-not-turning-off-google-crawlers-yet/?utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=general-rss", "published_at": "2026-08-04 18:45:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-04 19:26:54.533783+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-products"], "entities": ["People Inc.", "Neil Vogel", "Google", "Tim Quinn", "Apple News", "D/Cipher"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/people-inc-ceo-were-not-turning-off-google-crawlers-yet", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/people-inc-ceo-were-not-turning-off-google-crawlers-yet.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/people-inc-ceo-were-not-turning-off-google-crawlers-yet.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/people-inc-ceo-were-not-turning-off-google-crawlers-yet.jsonld"}}