Mobile has long dominated how audiences consume publisher content. What’s news is the economic pressure driven by recent industry macro trends.  

As search referrals dry up due to AI overviews and zero-click experiences, publishers are being forced to rethink what success on mobile actually looks like. The challenge is no longer just driving audiences to your site... It’s about maximizing revenue when they arrive, in an environment with fewer ad slots, shorter attention spans, and less reliable inbound traffic. 

In that context, community engagement is emerging as one of the most effective and durable levers publishers have left. 

Traffic Is Shifting. Mobile Is Taking Over.  

Across Disqus publishers, mobile usage has continued to rise steadily since 2021. Based on aggregated traffic from approved Disqus sites, mobile’s share of pageviews has grown from 67.62% in 2021 to 73.31% today. 

That shift may not sound dramatic on its own, but at scale it represents millions of sessions moving into an environment where monetization is harder to sustain. 

While month-to-month traffic mix naturally fluctuates, the long-term pattern is unmistakable. Mobile’s share of total traffic has increased and remained elevated over time, reinforcing that this is a structural shift in how audiences engage with publisher content rather than a short-term change. 

For publishers, the implication is straightforward. Mobile is no longer a secondary surface. It is the primary environment in which revenue strategies succeed or fall short. 

Why revenue per session matters more than traffic volume.  

On mobile, publishers have fewer opportunities to monetize each visit. There are fewer ad placements, less tolerance for intrusive formats, and higher bounce rates if pages feel cluttered or slow. 

That reality is pushing publishers toward a different optimization goal. Instead of chasing pageviews, the focus is shifting toward time-on-site, recirculation, and engagement. 

A longer, more interactive session creates more opportunities to monetize without adding friction. This is where community plays a unique role, and where Disqus in particular stands ready to pitch in.  

Community engagement is a mobile revenue multiplier. 

Community features are inherently well-suited to mobile behavior. 

Comments, polls, and other forms of audience engagement sit naturally within the scroll experience. They invite interaction rather than interruption. And critically, they encourage users to stay longer, explore related content, and return more frequently. 

Across Disqus sites, we consistently see that engagement driven by community features correlates with deeper sessions and higher overall monetization. On mobile, especially, community becomes a way to create engagement, not just impressions. 

This matters more than ever as publishers look for monetization strategies that preserve trust while still driving meaningful revenue. 

Building for mobile-first engagement. 

As mobile becomes the primary surface for community interaction, publishers are also seeking greater flexibility. They want greater control over how engagement appears, where it lives in the experience, and how it integrates with their broader site architecture. 

At Disqus, we’re actively exploring new SDK-based approaches that would allow publishers to more deeply integrate community into their mobile experiences. The goal is not to introduce new friction or force new workflows, but to give publishers more options to treat their community as a first-class part of their product, especially on mobile. 

This work is ongoing, and we’ll have more to share in the future. For now, it reflects a broader shift in how we’re thinking about community as infrastructure, not just a widget at the bottom of the page. 

The takeaway.

Mobile traffic is growing. Search is becoming less predictable. And the economics of publishing are increasingly defined by how much value can be generated from each session. 

Community engagement helps solve that problem. It increases session depth, encourages recirculation, and creates monetizable moments that feel natural within the mobile experience. 

As publishers adapt to a zero-click world, community is becoming one of the most valuable surfaces they control. 

Learn more!

If you’re interested in how Disqus' community engagement tools can unlock stronger monetization from your mobile audiences, contact us to learn more.