WorkA Reading, in Numbers
One Network,
Four Engines.
What Google, Bing and the AI answers did with the ten million pages of the Sustainability Directory, read day by day from its own accounts.
The result
17.5m
Copilot citations in eleven months, more after Google’s verdict than before it
- The Network
- sustainability-directory.com, a root and eleven subdomains
- Built
- from April 2024
- The Peak
- 370,755 Google clicks in a month
- Copilot
- 17.5 million citations in eleven months
The Work.
The Firm
The Sustainability Directory, the studio’s own reference network: a root and eleven subject sites on the studio’s engine since April 2024.
What Was Built
A reference of sustainability terms, questions and topics written with AI from its first month, and a record of every engine kept day by day.
What It Did
Google sent 370,755 clicks in its best month, then removed it on 30 May 2026; Bing kept sending, and Copilot cited it 17.5 million times.
The Network,
as It Stands.
The Numbers.
Every figure is the network’s own, from Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and Analytics.
- 370,755
Google clicks in March 2026, the network’s best month
- 0
pages in Google’s index after its manual action of 30 May 2026
- 31–39k
Bing clicks a month, before the action and after it
- 17.5m
Copilot citations, November 2025 to September 2026
Google Removed It.
Bing and Copilot Did Not.
Four engines, the same pages. Google’s clicks and AI answers fell to nothing at the manual action; Bing held, and Copilot set records.
The numbers
| Month | Google clicks | Google AI answers | Bing clicks | Copilot citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2025 | 242,703 | 23,848 | 743,409 | |
| Dec 2025 | 231,844 | 21,657 | 787,568 | |
| Jan 2026 | 220,997 | 24,278 | 890,102 | |
| Feb 2026 | 316,701 | 32,243 | 1,299,961 | |
| Mar 2026 | 370,755 | 36,499 | 1,852,508 | |
| Apr 2026 | 108,815 | 31,489 | 1,655,612 | |
| May 2026 | 46,249 | 172,938 | 32,735 | 1,406,185 |
| Jun 2026 | 1 | 340 | 32,440 | 2,031,858 |
| Jul 2026 | 0 | 5 | 31,579 | 1,926,793 |
| Aug 2026 | 0 | 0 | 38,790 | 2,186,748 |
| Sep 2026 | 0 | 7 | 35,180 | 2,719,538 |
Two Years,
in Four Dates.
From the first month of data to the verdict, as the accounts recorded it.
- 2024
The First Month
April 2024: 237 search visits. The subdomains followed through 2025, each reaching a thousand search visits a day in six to eleven months.
- Feb
The Warning
February 2026: Google doubled the network’s impressions, from 62.5 million to 134 million; the clicks did not follow.
- Mar
The Peak
March 2026: 370,755 Google clicks. On 26 March the clicks broke.
- May
The Verdict
30 May 2026: a manual action, “major spam problems”, affecting every page; Google’s AI answers dropped the network the same day.
What the AI
Answers Cite.
Read from Copilot’s own lists of the questions it answered and the pages it cited.
Not a Ranking
40 % of the pages Copilot cited never appeared in Google’s data at all.
Terms First
Pages that define one term carried half of Copilot’s citations, against a third of Google’s clicks.
Few Pages, Most Citations
The top 1 % of pages drew 35 % of all citations.
The Same Searches
Two thirds of Copilot’s citations came on searches Google also showed the network for.
What It Taught
the Studio.Pages made in bulk to rank are what Google removes. Since then every piece is first-hand, and pages multiply only from data nobody else holds.
What Every Reading
Now Does.
The case became the method.
Every Engine, on Its Own
Google, Bing, Google’s AI and Copilot are read separately, because they disagree.
The Record, Archived First
Every source is saved before it drops its history; Search Console keeps sixteen months.
People, Not Bots
Visits are read only after bots are filtered out; on this network they had been most of the traffic.
Few Pieces, First-Hand
Never pages made in bulk to rank: the one thing every engine eventually punishes.
Read Your Own
Numbers.
Ask for a reading: the same four engines, read from your firm’s own accounts. A person answers the request within two working days.