Google search for ‘UK budget’ on 28 October 2026 brought up an AI Overview with a link carousel highlighting the BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph
More than two-thirds of the biggest news websites in the UK saw their Google search visibility drop in the past year, according to new Sistrix data.
The biggest change was at the Daily Mail which migrated to a new global domain , dailymail.com, in April to match the move to one global brand name nine months earlier.
On 21 October, six months after the domain change, the Sistrix search visibility score for dailymail.com was 9.99 – compared to 32.17 for dailymail.co.uk this time a year ago.
News SEO consultant Barry Adams of Polemic Digital told Press Gazette it was nonetheless a successful migration.
He explained: “The Daily Mail migration was high-risk. A domain name change is the most disruptive migration for any news publisher because inclusion in Google’s news ecosystem is tied to the publisher’s hostname. Changing the domain risks dropping out of Top Stories and Google News, which seems to have happened with the Mail.
“They have since managed to get back into that news ecosystem due to their strong brand power and good SEO. Usually, it takes up to two years to get back into Top Stories, whereas the Mail did it in months. And now they’re better placed to target the US market with their .com domain.”
Sistrix’s Visibility Index summarises how visible a website is in Google search results using a single figure as a benchmark, assigning higher scores to sites that tend to rank better. The score draws on organic (unpaid) search results and excludes visibility in Top Stories boxes, AI Overviews or the Discover content feed.
The other biggest changes in actual visibility score were at several major newsbrands: BBC News (dropping from 41.8 to 20.35), The Guardian (from 236.88 to 216.86) and The New York Times (from 58.09 to 38.23).
Adams said these changes were “likely due to Google’s focus on greater diversity in its results”.
He added: “It’s not that these sites did anything wrong, but that Google chose to allow smaller sites to also rank in its results. Since search is now a zero-sum game, small sites winning means big sites lose.”
The biggest growth in actual search visibility over the past year was at creator platform Substack , which continues to add well-known names, such as ex-Guardian columnist Marina Hyde , as well as new writers.
Substack’s search visibility score went from 13.48 on 20 October 2025 to 27.94 on 21 October 2026 according to Sistrix.
Adams said: “Substack’s growth is a combination of its own growth, as more creators flock to the platform, and strong built-in SEO capabilities.
“A key advantage Substack has is that it’s a self-curated platform where unique, quality content from authentic creators gains more traction, citations, and links, resulting in greater visibility in Google.”
Behind Substack, the biggest growth in actual terms was at Money Saving Expert (going from 81.82 to 94.14) and The Times (from 12.58 to 17.78).
In the past year Google algorithm changes have included a core update, an update to Discover designed to show more locally relevant and expert content and reduce “sensational content and clickbait”, and four updates designed to downgrade spammy content.
Publishers are also fighting for less space at the top of Google search results as AI Overviews mean users increasingly have to scroll for traditional links to news website content.
However this feature was added shortly after the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority forced Google to add the ability for websites to opt out of AI Overviews – meaning publishers may now be disadvantaged by doing so because they would also be opting out from these Top Stories boxes.
Topics in this article : Daily Mail
, Substack
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