Alphabet reported Q1 2026 earnings with Google Search and Other revenue rising 19% year over year to $60.4 billion. Microsoft announced on the same day that Bing had reached 1 billion monthly active users for the first time, and search ad revenue was up 12%.
Both companies posted strong search results. But one line item in Alphabet’s report tells a different story for websites that depend on Google’s ad network for revenue.
Google’s Network Revenue Drops Below $7 Billion
The “Network” segment, which includes AdSense, AdMob, and Google Ad Manager, is not representative of the entire web economy but is a clear indicator of advertising-related finances outside of Google. For publishers and app developers who rely on Google ads, the decline affects them more than it affects the growth of Search revenue.
It has been declining for two years, Google Network decreased every quarter from Q1 2024 to Q1 2026. Q1 2026 of 6.97 billion dollars is very low, below 7 billion dollars for the first time.
The gap is becoming more and more visible. In Q1 2024, the Google Network accounted for approximately 12% of Google’s ad revenue; in Q1 2026, it dropped to 9%. During that time, Google Search & Other grew from $46.2 billion to $60.4 billion, with Search growing 31% and Other contracting 6%.
The decline is not typical of the digital ad market as a whole. The IAB/PwC Internet Advertising Revenue Report found that US programmatic advertising will grow 20.5% by 2025 to $162.4 billion. The organized market grew while the Alphabet Google Network line did not.
The quarterly numbers slide into sharp disruption at the publisher level. In January, a two-day technical failure in Google’s ad exchange led AdSense publishers to report eCPM and RPM drops of 50-90% without a corresponding decrease in traffic. Google solved the problem, but showed how weak publisher-side network monetization can be.
Bing’s Milestone in Content
While Google’s revenue mix means the ecosystem is shifting inward, Microsoft is relying heavily on user acquisition to prove its AI bets are paying off.
CEO Satya Nadella revealed during the FY26 Q3 earnings call that Bing reached 1 billion active users for the first time. Search ad revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, grew 12%. Edge has gained browser market share for 20 consecutive quarters.
The broader segment, which includes Bing, fell 1% overall to $13.2 billion. Search advertising was the bright spot within you.
Bing’s global search share still sits at around 5% worldwide with StatCounter data for March 2026. That gap between 1 billion MAU and a share of around 5% worldwide raises questions about MAU statistics. Microsoft has not explained the frequency, overlap, or how Bing’s AI-related usage is calculated.
Microsoft also creates measurement tools that are important for SEOs. Bing Webmaster Tools now maps basic queries to citation pages, and Microsoft previewed Citation Sharing at SEO Week in April. If City Share ships, it could be one of the first tools offered by the platform to compare AI visibility on Bing against competitors.
CFO Amy Hood reported Q4 search ad growth in the single digits, down from three double-digit quarters. Nadella said the consumer business is doing “the basic work needed to bring fans back.” Bing results support news retention, not throwing Google’s focus first.
Why This Matters to Search Professionals
For more than a year, SEO experts have been monitoring whether AI Overview and AI mode reduce clicks on publisher sites. These reports do not resolve that question but support the pattern documented by independent research.
Google Search’s business is booming, with CEO Sundar Pichai calling queries “higher value.” Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said the strength of the quarter was related to retail, finance and health.
What is disputed is what happens behind the question. Google Network revenue has declined, while Search revenue has accelerated, suggesting that more searches are staying on Google’s sites. Data does not include AI Overview or AI Mode caused network drop. The Google network can go down for a variety of reasons, such as ad demand and product changes, giving search advertisers another financial signal to compare with traffic, CTR, and publisher revenue.
Third-party data partially fills the gap, although studies measure different things. An Ahrefs study analyzed 300,000 keywords using desktop CTR data and found that AI Overviews correlate with 58% lower click-through rates. Chartbeat data shared by Axios showed small publishers lost 60% of search traffic over two years, medium publishers 47%, and large publishers lost 22%.
Seer Interactive tracked a drop in organic CTR from 1.41% to 0.64% for queries with an AI overview. Its April review showed some recovery. Organic CTR for AI Overview queries increased from 1.3% in December to 2.4% in February. The worst initial drop may have subsided, but CTR is still lower than pages without AI Overview.
Google’s Liz Reid in Bloomberg says AI overviews reduce “bounce clicks” rather than useful visits, but provide no supporting data. He said they track repeat searches, which measure Google retention rather than publisher traffic. Google executives made a similar argument at Google Marketing Live, calling clicks from AI-enhanced search “highly qualified” without sharing supporting data.
Search activity continues to grow in terms of disclosed metrics. However, the number of captures is changing. Metrics like referral traffic, AdSense RPM, or organic CTR may no longer correlate with search revenue growth. Google’s revenue can increase even if the publisher’s traffic decreases.
Company Undisclosed
Neither company disclosed how much AI-assisted query growth is generating outbound clicks on publisher sites; that number hasn’t been in earnings reports since AI features were introduced to Search.
Photosi said inquiries are “very high,” referring to searches, not clicks to external sites. Microsoft did not specify what is important to Bing’s 1 billion MAU, including whether Copilot interactions, API calls, or agent queries are included.
Looking Forward
Pichai said more information about Search will be shared at Google I/O in May and at Google Marketing Live.
Microsoft Citation Share has not been posted; once it does, it could be among the first AI visibility comparison platform tools on Bing. Its usefulness depends on Microsoft disclosing outbound click data alongside its MAU statistics.
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