I couldn't find a published Snopes-specific figure showing a plunge, so I can't say it has plummeted. What is documented is a broader pattern. Chartbeat data, reported by Axios in March 2026, found referral traffic from traditional search fell 60% over two years for small publishers, 47% for medium-sized ones and 22% for large ones. Google Search page views fell 34% from December 2024 to December 2025, while ChatGPT referrals rose by more than 200%, though chatbots still send under 1% of publisher referrals.
For Snopes itself, the only numbers I found are third-party estimates. A Semrush overview last updated 13 December 2025 reported organic search traffic down about 8.2% month on month and roughly 5,000 visits from ChatGPT. One month's change isn't a trend, and these are estimates, not Snopes's own counts.
So the fact is that search referrals to publishers are falling; the estimate is that AI answers are a major cause. Snopes's own traffic history would settle the Snopes part, and that isn't public as far as I can find.
🕒 As of October 2026
