What Google & Microsoft Earnings Say About Search

Alphabet reported Q1 2026 earnings with Google Search & Different income rising 19% yr over yr to $60.4 billion. Microsoft announced on the identical day that Bing reached 1 billion month-to-month energetic customers for the primary time, with search advert income up 12%.

Each firms posted robust search quarters. However one line merchandise in Alphabet’s report tells a distinct story for the web sites that depend upon Google’s advert community for income.

Google Community Income Fell Under $7 Billion

The “Community” section, together with AdSense, AdMob, and Google Advert Supervisor, isn’t a proxy for your complete net’s advert financial system however is a transparent monetary indicator tied to adverts outdoors Google’s surfaces. For publishers and app builders counting on Google-brokered adverts, the decline impacts them greater than it impacts Search income progress.

It has been shrinking over two years, with Google Community declining every quarter from Q1 2024 to Q1 2026. Q1 2026’s $6.97 billion is the bottom, beneath $7 billion for the primary time.

The hole is more and more evident. In Q1 2024, Google Community accounted for about 12% of Google’s advert income; by Q1 2026, it fell to roughly 9%. In the meantime, Google Search & Different grew from $46.2 billion to $60.4 billion, with Search increasing 31% and Others contracting 6%.

The decline doesn’t match the general digital advert market. The IAB/PwC Internet Advertising Revenue Report discovered that U.S. programmatic promoting grew 20.5% in 2025 to $162.4 billion. The programmatic market grew whereas Alphabet’s Google Community line didn’t.

The quarterly numbers easy over sharper disruptions on the writer degree. In January, a two-day technical failure in Google’s advert trade led AdSense publishers to report eCPM and RPM drops of 50-90% with out corresponding declines in site visitors. Google resolved the difficulty, but it surely confirmed how fragile publisher-side community monetization may be.

Bing’s Milestone In Context

Whereas Google’s income combine hints at an ecosystem shifting inward, Microsoft is leaning closely into person acquisition to show its AI bets are paying off.

CEO Satya Nadella revealed through the FY26 Q3 earnings name that Bing reached 1 billion month-to-month energetic customers for the primary time. Search advert income, excluding site visitors acquisition prices, grew 12%. Edge has gained browser market share for 20 consecutive quarters.

The broader section, which incorporates Bing, was down 1% total to $13.2 billion. Search promoting was the brilliant spot inside it.

Bing’s global search share nonetheless sits at about 5% worldwide per StatCounter’s March 2026 information. That hole between 1 billion MAU and roughly 5% international share raises questions on what the MAU determine measures. Microsoft hasn’t outlined frequency, overlap, or how AI-related Bing utilization is counted.

Microsoft can be constructing measurement instruments that matter for SEOs. Bing Webmaster Tools now maps grounding queries to cited pages, and Microsoft previewed Citation Share at search engine optimisation Week in April. When Quotation Share ships, it might develop into one of many first platform-provided instruments for evaluating AI visibility on Bing in opposition to opponents.

CFO Amy Hood reported This autumn search advert progress within the excessive single digits, down from three double-digit quarters. Nadella mentioned the patron enterprise is doing “the foundational work required to win again followers.” Bing’s outcomes help sustaining protection, not dropping Google-first focus.

Why This Issues For Search Professionals

For over a yr, search engine optimisation professionals have monitored whether or not AI Overviews and AI Mode lower clicks to writer websites. These experiences don’t settle that query however help a sample documented by independent research.

Google’s Search enterprise is rising, with CEO Sundar Pichai calling queries “at an all-time excessive.” Chief Enterprise Officer Philipp Schindler attributed the quarter’s energy to retail, finance, and well being.

What’s contested is what occurs after the question. Google Community income fell, whereas Search income accelerated, suggesting extra searches keep on Google surfaces. The information doesn’t show AI Overviews or AI Mode triggered the Community decline. Google Community can decline for varied causes, equivalent to advert demand and product modifications, offering search entrepreneurs with one other monetary sign to match with site visitors, CTR, and writer income.

Third-party information partially fills the hole, although research measure various things. An Ahrefs study analyzed 300,000 key phrases utilizing desktop CTR information and located that AI Overviews correlate with 58% decrease click-through charges. Chartbeat data shared by Axios confirmed small publishers misplaced 60% of search site visitors over two years, medium publishers 47%, and enormous publishers 22%.

Seer Interactive tracked an natural CTR drop from 1.41% to 0.64% for queries with AI Overviews. Its April update confirmed some restoration. Natural CTR on AI Overview queries climbed from 1.3% in December to 2.4% in February. The worst of the preliminary drop might have eased, however CTR remains to be nicely beneath that of pages with out AI Overviews.

Google’s Liz Reid on Bloomberg claims AI Overviews reduce “bounce clicks” somewhat than helpful visits, however doesn’t present supporting information. She mentioned they monitor search recurrence, which measures Google’s retention somewhat than writer site visitors. Google executives made a similar argument at Google Advertising Reside, calling clicks from AI-enhanced search “extra extremely certified” with out sharing supporting information.

Search exercise continues to develop in response to disclosed metrics. Nevertheless, the worth seize is shifting. Metrics like referral site visitors, AdSense RPM, or natural CTR might now not align with search income progress. Google’s income can rise at the same time as writer site visitors declines.

What Neither Firm Disclosed

Neither firm disclosed how a lot AI-assisted question progress produces outbound clicks to writer websites; that quantity has been absent from earnings experiences since AI options launched in Search.

Pichai mentioned queries are “at an all-time excessive,” referring to searches, not clicks to exterior websites. Microsoft hasn’t clarified what counts towards Bing’s 1 billion MAU, together with whether or not Copilot interactions, API calls, or agent queries are included.

Trying Forward

Pichai mentioned extra Search data will likely be shared at Google I/O in Could and Google Advertising Reside.

Microsoft’s Quotation Share hasn’t shipped but; as soon as it does, it might be among the many first platform instruments for evaluating AI visibility on Bing. Its usefulness will depend on whether or not Microsoft discloses outbound click on information alongside its MAU figures.

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