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Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

wsj.com

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Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#171

Post by bananalychee »

I don't believe that Google's AI Overviews or even LLMs in general are to blame for the decline in traffic to news websites. ChatGPT launched with the GPT-3.5 model in November 2022 without a web search function, and had a training data cutoff date of September 2021. Google AI Overviews launched in May 2024 to generally poor reception initially, and ChatGPT Search launched in July 2024. The graph presented in the article reveals a trend starting as far back as April 2022, well before mass-market LLM products could extract useful information in real time, and it doesn't look like it's accelerated significantly. In fact, the WSJ series contradicts it. Prior data would likely reveal that the broad decline began much earlier, since it's well-known[1] that younger generations prefer to get their news from social media these days. Paywalls, quality degradation in search results, and mistrust in the objectivity of news coverage are likely contributing factors.

I don't doubt that the shift from web searches to automated information extraction will pose new challenges to websites that rely on search engine optimization to drive new user traffic, especially for small/individual operators, and I'll be happy to witness the death of SEO if it comes to that, but blaming a new Google Search feature[2] for a long-running decline in traffic to online newspapers strikes me as a deflection from the slow death of their business model.

P.S.: Google's AI Overviews are fairly respectful of content providers and link back to source material from the generated text.

[1] https://theconversation.com/young-people-are-abandoning-news...

[2] The current title of the article is "News Sites Are Getting Crushed by Google’s New AI Tools"

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#172

Post by felipeerias »

The emergence of AI tools and closed platforms will reduce the importance of advertising on the open Web, and eventually of the open Web itself.

One possible way this plays out is that attention and investment move towards proprietary ecosystems, with large AI companies being able to secure exclusive access to closed information sources while everyone else is reduced to getting what they can from a dwindling open Web.

Another possibility might be that new standards allow interoperability between AI agents and open content providers, including microtransactions between them, and creating a new marketplace for information.

https://stratechery.com/2025/the-agentic-web-and-original-si...

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#173

Post by chneu »

ajross wrote: post #128
bcoates wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every once in a while I bother not ignoring a Google AI overview, then I waste some time fact-checking it and find out it's wrong. Most recently about a python library (where it hallucinated a function that doesn't exist, complete with documentation and usage examples) and breaking news (where it authoritatively said [non-culture war, non-controversial, local] thing doesn't happen, above a dog-bites-man story from a…

> Every once in a while Pretty much what I said, no? You don't use the product and when you do, do it through a filter[1] where you only remember the bugs. Do you use other AI search products and find that they don't show this behavior? [1] I mean, come on: framing it as "bother not ignoring" is just a dead giveaway that you aren't doing a product evaluation in good faith!

I think you're also showing some bias.

People are now changing how they search and gather information to use AI. You're automatically discounting that person's experience because they avoid using AI for valid reasons. A lot of times Google AI is outright wrong, not even close to correct. It makes sense to not rely on it and only going back to see if it's improved.

I don't "ignore AI". I just haven't changed how I search and gather information because it's clearly not accurate yet. I still have to fact check it which negates the benefits(time saving). Occasionally I go back to see if it's improved and usually it hasn't. That's not bias.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#174

Post by chneu »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #101
ajross wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to my untrained eyes like Google's AI search is actually the best on the market, no? Seems like a lot of HN users have trained themselves not to type queries into the search prompt anymore and then complain about the quality of a product they don't use.

Possibly their AI search - I don't know, I switched to Kagi to get a search engine that actually did what I asked instead of just trying to put as many ads in front of me as it could.

I tried to like Kagi but the UI is awful and the results were often way off from what was relevant. Then the limitations were pretty lame.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#175

Post by [deleted] »

juujian wrote: post #82
spankalee wrote: post #21

Google's damned if they do and damned if the don't here: - If they don't make search AI centric, they're going to get lapped by AI-first competitors like Perplexity, OpenAI, etc. We saw many people here predict Google's pending demise from this. - If they do make search centric, they're unfairly consuming they world's content and hoarding the user traffic to themselves. Since no reasonable company is just going to st…

The one way forward for them would have been to maintain their quality, but they decided to cash in on their monopoly instead. Peak short-termis.

[deleted]

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#176

Post by ambicapter »

Baader-Meinhof wrote: post #75
chgs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you trust an ai run by a shady company but not an attributable human editor.

I think you have an outdated understanding of AI workflow. They generally cite their sources, which you should check, just like regular search.

The source is not what’s convincing you, it’s the way the ai is presenting you the information. The source just confirms what you’re already thinking at that point (what the ai has just presented to you). You’re still trusting the ai.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#177

Post by potamic »

felipeerias wrote: post #172

The emergence of AI tools and closed platforms will reduce the importance of advertising on the open Web, and eventually of the open Web itself. One possible way this plays out is that attention and investment move towards proprietary ecosystems, with large AI companies being able to secure exclusive access to closed information sources while everyone else is reduced to getting what they can from a dwindling open Web…

What will happen is that chatbots will start showing ads and publishers will bid over prompt keywords to have their content sponsored and boosted. I don't see the end result being very different from what it is today. Chatbots will eventually get enshittified to the level of google search today. It's inevitable, unless there's some dramatic shift in advertising economics.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#179

Post by physix »

oytis wrote: post #24

But... Google's AI summaries are wrong like at least 50% of the time.

I read them to get an idea of the quality that the AI produces, but mostly ignore the content after reading and click on to find actual sources, since I don't yet trust that content.

I was thinking that the drop in traffic to news sites is due to AI summaries, which might have the effect of filtering out people who are happy with a snippet. And was postulating that it would have two effects: improving the relevance of those who go to the news site (good) and feeding people with poor quality AI generated information (bad).

But then I tested out various news- ish search terms and never got an AI summary from Google. So I think the primary cause for a drop in traffic to news sites is probably not the AI summary itself.

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