Some publishers have seen significant decline in referral traffic, most likely because Instant Articles are viewed on Facebook instead of driving readers to publishers’ own websites. Some have seen a drop of about 25 %, but other publishers and measurement firms initially saw a decline which has since recovered. Generally, it seems that the publishers that have invested heavily in Instant Articles have seen the biggest downturns.

Changes to referral traffic from Facebook are closely followed: last year, Facebook became a bigger source of traffic than Google for publishers, and some worry that publishers may have to end up paying Facebook to highlight their stories on users’ feeds. (8.4.2016)