Maybe if the search wasnt full of ads and scams
AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
11–20 of 872 posts
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#12This means searches are still happening, just being routed elsewhere?
I noticed Google's new AI summary let's me click on a link in the summary and the links are posted to the right.
Those clicks are available, might not be discovered yet, curious though if those show up anywhere as data.
Google being able to create summaries off actual web search results will be an interesting take compared to other models trying to get the same done without similar search results at their disposal.
The new search engine could be google doing the search and compiling the results for us how we do manually.
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#13You can apparently disable these annoying and useless "AI" overviews by cursing in the query: https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/01/just-give-me-the-fing...
appending a -"fuck google #{insert slur of choice here}" to my search results has improved them. Then I wonder why I do this to myself and ponder going back to kagi.
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#14I subscribe to Kagi. It's been worth it to have no ads and the ability to uprank/downrank sites.
And there's no AI garbage sitting in the top of the engine.
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#15The AI overview doesn't (for me) cause a big drop in clicking on sites.
But AI as a product most certainly does! I was trying to figure out why a certain AWS tool stopped working, and Gemini figured it out for me. In the past I would have browsed multiple forums to figure out it.
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#16The tricky thing for Google will be to do this and not kill their cash cow ad business.
Not tricky at all.
This is a new line of business that provides them with more ad space to sell.
If the overview becomes a trusted source of information, then all they need to do is inject ads in the overviews. They already sort of dye that. Imagine it as a sort of text based product placement.
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#17I've seen blatantly wrong stuff in that overview too many times, I just ignore it now.
To be fair, the actual results are often even worse. I'm pretty sure we're close to the point where our favorite AI prompt replaces classic googling. While it will get a lot of the answer wrong, it will lead to the right result faster than plain searches. If nothing else, because refining our search at the AI prompt will be way easier than in classic google. Google knows and needs to stay on top of this paradigm change, but I guess doesn't know how to monetize AI search yet so it doesn't want to force the change (yet).
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#18This means searches are still happening, just being routed elsewhere? I noticed Google's new AI summary let's me click on a link in the summary and the links are posted to the right. Those clicks are available, might not be discovered yet, curious though if those show up anywhere as data. Google being able to create summaries off actual web search results will be an interesting take compared to other models trying to…
> Google being able to create summaries off actual web search results will be an interesting take compared to other models trying to get the same done without similar search results at their disposal.
And may get them in some anti-trust trouble once publishers start fighting back, similar to AMP, or their thing with Genius and song lyrics. Turns out site owners don't like when Google takes their content and displays it to users without forcing said users to click through to the actual website.
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#19The tricky thing for Google will be to do this and not kill their cash cow ad business.
Ads inside LLMs (e.g. pay $ to boost your product in LLM recommendation) is going to be a big thing.
My guess is that Google/OpenAI are eyeing each other - whoever does this first.
Why would that work? It's a proven business model. Example: I use LLMs for product research (e.g. which washing machine to buy). Retailer pays if link to their website is included in the results. Don't want to pay? Then redirect the user to buy it on Walmart instead of Amazon.
Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
#20I subscribe to Kagi. It's been worth it to have no ads and the ability to uprank/downrank sites. And there's no AI garbage sitting in the top of the engine.
You can opt-in to get an LLM response by phrasing your queries as a question.
Searching for “who is Roger rabbit” gives me Wikipedia, IMDb and film site as results.
Searching for “who is Roger rabbit?” gives me a “quick answer” LLM-generated response: “Roger Rabbit is a fictional animated anthropomorphic rabbit who first appeared in Gary K. Wolf's 1981 novel…” followed by a different set of results. It seems the results are influenced by the sources/references the LLM generated.