This is definitely bad. But on a different note, I think this was inevitable, as the new generation's attention span keeps dropping rapidly with all the TikTok and Instagram shorts. I believe publishers will need to figure out shorter written content formats as well. Until then, Google and others that offer alternatives will have an edge. I'm not saying this is the only way forward—just part of the evolution. I believe publishers will evolve to adapt to this too.
Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
181–190 of 254 posts
Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you have an outdated understanding of AI workflow.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.
That may be true of the average user, but you have no way of knowing it's true of the person you replied to. It's 100% possible to check the sources properly, and form your beliefs accordingly, if you want to.
Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#183In the old days - back before smartphones, back before widescreen monitors, back before broadband - the "Links" section was always a key part of any site. After spending time on a site, a visitor could find links to other pages - some of them on the same topic, some of them simply enjoyed by the creator of the site they were on. If one were to visualize the concept, they might well say that this formed a "web" of sor…
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Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#184All I want is to go to the site of my favorite newspapers and see stuff that matters.
Instead I get things like this:
“Modern fathers have failed”
“Man need to ditch the dadbod”
“Equality means only man should be drafted”
They have tons of great and deeply investigated content, but they throw engagement bait into your face. In the end I use a search engine to extract a relevant subset of articles.
Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#185In the old days - back before smartphones, back before widescreen monitors, back before broadband - the "Links" section was always a key part of any site. After spending time on a site, a visitor could find links to other pages - some of them on the same topic, some of them simply enjoyed by the creator of the site they were on. If one were to visualize the concept, they might well say that this formed a "web" of sor…
They were called webrings.
Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#186If nobody writes it, the LLM can't learn it. This is going to be a fascinating shift of resources. I suspect it will have the inverse effect of eroding traditional journalism outlets to retrofit for the new model, while boosting smaller competitors, but with everyone going to subscription based. The content creators could make a significant amount of money. Then again, this would be a great time for state-sponsored m…
I'm naturally conspiratorial; but, this is possibly why search results were intentionally degraded over the past 5 years. Which has had an impact on overall site traffic that has not gone unnoticed. Google's been trying their luck with "creator summits" over the past few years but the creators are starting to smell a rat.
So you have Google which famously does not want people to actually leave their property. Infoboxes, calculator, extraction of semantic data for direct display in search results.
Would a company like that intentionally downgrade search results making quality content harder for users to find, then train their LLMs on this highly valuable content, ultimately creating an unnatural shift away from the previous model to the "weak AI chatbot" model?
I know HN hates conspiracies but there's trillions of dollars at stake here. We know companies will poison entire communities and create flammable rivers just to shave a few million off the expenses. Who knows what Google will do to keep it's market position?
Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#187Earlier 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.
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…
My experience with Gemini in AI studio mirrors what the AI overview shows. An hallucinated libraries and their internal reasoning dialogue reinforcing the hallucination and saying "the user don't know how to search on pipy".
Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#188In the old days - back before smartphones, back before widescreen monitors, back before broadband - the "Links" section was always a key part of any site. After spending time on a site, a visitor could find links to other pages - some of them on the same topic, some of them simply enjoyed by the creator of the site they were on. If one were to visualize the concept, they might well say that this formed a "web" of sor…
They were called webrings.
Nah, Webrings were an extension of the link page ... but not the same thing.
The Link page was curated by the site operator and usually a linear list. IT's main goal was to say "Hey, this is cool, too".
A webring was more like a collective, whereas individual webring members did not necessarily know or agree with every other site in the ring. And it usually was not a list either, but more of a mini topical directory, often with a token-ring-style "Visit the next / random / prev site" navigation you could add to your own page. Webrings were already geared to increasing visitor numbers to your own page ("Others will link to me").
Oh, those were easier times.
Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#189Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers
#190This is Google's fault.
They made Search worse so people have to resort to AI chatbots.