Game On: How Google’s Legal Fallout Will Open Billions of $ in New Opportunities…

Everything You Need To Know About the Google Ruling 📰

Read Time: 7 minutes

I’m not smart enough to predict precisely how Judge Mehta will rule next or what will happen when the Supreme Court gets involved.

Before we dig in, let’s get you up to speed:

• Read the Judge’s ruling
• Bloomberg Law has a Great Summary
• An SEO’s take

Judge Mehta took the most significant issue with the $26 Billion in payments to:

1. Apple: Google paid $20 Billion to Apple for being the default search engine on the Safari browser on iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers. This agreement is one of the most important for Google.
2. Android OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers): Google entered into agreements with manufacturers of Android devices, such as Samsung and Motorola, to ensure that Google Search was the default search engine on their devices.
3. Mobile Carriers: Google also paid mobile carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to make Google Search the default option on their devices.
4. Browser Developers: Payments were made to web browser developers, most notably Mozilla for its Firefox browser, to maintain Google as the default search engine.

We need to plan for these payments to go away. 28% of Google’s traffic comes from Apple. I’m planning right now on a 20% – 30% reduction in Google search traffic as many Apple users will continue to use Google, but when Google is no longer the default on phones and browsers, Bing, OpenAI, DuckDuckGo, and others will take their share.

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in This read 👀

• How to diversify to mitigate against loss of traffic
• What to expect from other search engines..
• Getting comfortable with worst-case scenarios

How To mitigate potential traffic loss ✔️

Courts move slowly, and this ruling will spill into 2025/2026.

But you don’t have time.

You need this time to diversify.

Here’s what I’ll be doing:

1. Grow my email and SMS lists. You own your email. A low-cost and super dependable way to communicate with customers and prospects.
2. More Meta. Zuck may roll his own search engine into WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. I want to be ready to ride that wave, and if he does not increase my share of traffic from these three platforms…
3. I plan to use YouTube more. It’s the second-largest search engine and reaches some 82% of the US population monthly. With tools like Descript its super simple to do more high-quality video.
4. Amazon. 60% of shoppers start here. Own your customer’s shopping list. Even if you’re in B2B, Amazon can be a great low-cost place to get found.
5. Reddit and other community sites. Customers want unvarnished opinions on products and services, and this will continue to grow in 2025.
6. TikTok. If you serve a younger demographic, this is a rapidly growing source of traffic. BUT I’m worried about the ban… so its last on my list.

Here’s What to expect… 👀

We are already seeing a flurry of announcements from Google as they try to get as much released before a remedy ruling.

Competitors sensing weakness are accelerating their product releases.

With 100 billion dollars of profit at play, we are going to see a search/AI pile-on from Meta, OpenAI, Bing, and hundreds of start-ups.

This will be good for choice and innovation, but you are going to have to be careful to avoid the ‘shiny new thing’ syndrome as Google is not going away, just like Microsoft did not post its Monopoly ruling.

Let’s talk Worst Case

We must be prepared for a much more complex 2025/2026 digital marketing environment.

These are my worst-case assumptions:

• Google splits into 4: Google is broken up, like ATT, into four companies: Android, Search, Ads, and Infrastructure (they get Chrome). You will need new accounts with each… and they likely won’t work together like they used to.
• Ad Rates go up! I know this sounds CRAZY, but less traffic on similar media budgets means you will pay more for less. The dollars can’t just flow over to Bing because Bing ads are still subpar.
• Traffic is down more than 30%… but it’s hard to replace as it atomizes over 35 new platforms from DuckDuck Go to Bing.
• AI accelerates, driven by this new race to capture the spoils of Google Search Revenue.
• Regulators unintentionally create under-served areas of the market. With Google broken up, GA4 could disappear, forcing you to buy new tools at much higher costs for small businesses. Just look at the fiasco, which is GDPR.

No one knows how this will all play out.

The laws of unattended consequences are real.

What I do know is that you need to get ready.

This is a once-in-a-decade storm/opportunity, and for those who are ready, billions of dollars of value can be captured.