Condé Nast CEO: "Plan As If Search Traffic Will Be Zero"

No surprise... he said that search-based traffic is falling off.

Highlights:

• Condé Nast is planning for a future where search sends little traffic.
• Lynch expects search to settle at a single-digit share of total traffic.
• He said brands with strong authority or loyal niche audiences are better positioned as search traffic declines.

Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch told teams to plan as if search traffic will be zero after three years of forecasts that underestimated actual declines.

Lynch made the comments in an interview on TBPN, a tech talk show OpenAI acquired in April. He described three consecutive years in which internal budget forecasts underestimated actual declines in search traffic.

“Each of the last three years, we would do our budgets, and we’d put forecasts in of search traffic declining… Because we’d seen the pattern of algorithm changes. And generally those algorithm changes were negative.”

“Every year, our search traffic was down more than we had forecast. So last year I told our teams, ‘Assume there’s no search.’ You have to have your businesses planned as if search is zero.”

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Lynch told TBPN that Condé Nast doesn’t expect search traffic to literally reach zero. He expects it to settle at a single-digit percentage of total traffic.

What Changed​

Lynch described how the search results page has changed, based on a comparison his team prepared for a recent board meeting. Lynch recalled:

“We took a snapshot of search results from seven or eight years ago. And what you saw were a few sponsored links, then the ten blue links.”

“Do the same search today, you get an AI overview, then you get rows and rows and rows of commerce links, then you get sponsored stuff.”

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He noted that someone had recently asked him how search revenue could be up. “Have you done a search recently?” Lynch replied. “I basically have to go to the second page to get an organic result.”

Lynch acknowledged that changes in search traffic have affected Condé Nast’s business. The company has continued to grow revenue and profitability despite the decline, which he called a “headwind” rather than a crisis.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/conde-nast-ceo-plan-as-if-search-traffic-will-be-zero/574786/