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AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

arstechnica.com

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Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#141

Post by what »

mvdtnz wrote: post #86
deadbabe wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The overviews are also wrong and difficult to get fixed. Let’s not pretend that some websites aren’t straight up bullshit. There’s blogs spreading bullshit, wrong info, biased info, content marketing for some product etc. And lord knows comments are frequently wrong, just look around Hackernews. I’d bet that LLMs are actually wrong less often than typical search results, because they pull from far greater training…

When asking a question do you not see a difference between 1. Here's the answer (but it's misinformation) 2. Here are some websites that look like they might have the answer ?

Isn’t 1 really “here’s a summary of what the websites from 2 say”?

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#142

Post by jkingsman »

ncallaway wrote: post #65
mtkd wrote: post #50

Conversely, it's useful to get an immediate answer sometimes 6 months ago, "what temp is pork safe at?" was a few clicks, long SEO optimised blog post answers and usually all in F not C ... despite Google knowing location ... I used it as an example at the time of 'how hard can this be?' First sentance of Google AI response right now: "Pork is safe to eat when cooked to an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C)"

Dear lord please don’t use an AI overview answer for food safety. If you made a bet with your friend and are using the AI overview to settle it, fine. But please please click on an actual result from a trusted source if you’re deciding what temperature to cook meat to

Mmm, I see this cutting both ways -- generally, I'd agree; safety critical things should not be left to an AI. However, cooking temperatures are information that has a factual ground truth (or at least one that has been decided on), has VERY broad distribution on the internet, and generally is a single, short "kernel" of information that has become subject to slop-ifying and "here's an article when you're looking for about 30 characters of information or less" that is prolific on the web.

So, I'd agree -- safety info from an LLM is bad. But generally, the /flavor/ (heh) of information that such data comprises is REALLY good to get from LLMs (as opposed to nuanced opinions or subjective feedback).

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#143

Post by what »

taurath wrote: post #132
jordanb wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google could have cut down on this if they wanted. And in general they did until they fired Matt Cutts. The reality is, every time someone's search is satisfied by an organic result is lost revenue for Google.

Which is the stupidest position ever if Google wants to exist long term. Unfortunately there are no workable alternatives. DDG is somehow not better, though I use it to avoid trackers.

DDG is just serving you remixed bing and yandex results. There’s basically no alternative to GBY that do their own crawling and maintain their own index.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#144

Post by skydhash »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #133

Of course slow, shitty web sites also cause a massive drop in clicks, as soon as an alternative to clicking emerges. It's just like on HN, if I see an interesting title and want to know what the article is about, I can wince and click the article link, but it's much faster and easier to click the HN comments link and infer the info I want from the comments. That difference is almost entirely from the crappy overdesig…

I like good design as much as the next guy, but only when it does not impact information access. I use eww (emacs web wowser) and w3m sometimes and it's fascinating how much speed you get after stripping away the JS bloat.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#145

Post by accrual »

tayo42 wrote: post #122
esafak wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write documentation and don't block crawlers.

Wouldn't you need to wait until they train and release their next model?

I don't know this for certain, but I imagine there's some kind of kv store between queries and AI overviews. Maybe they could update certain overviews or redo them with a better model.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#146

Post by what »

didibus wrote: post #125
mtkd wrote: post #50

Conversely, it's useful to get an immediate answer sometimes 6 months ago, "what temp is pork safe at?" was a few clicks, long SEO optimised blog post answers and usually all in F not C ... despite Google knowing location ... I used it as an example at the time of 'how hard can this be?' First sentance of Google AI response right now: "Pork is safe to eat when cooked to an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C)"

Funny story, I used that to know the cooked temperature of burgers, it said medium-rare was 130. I proceeded to eating it and all, but then like half way through, I noticed the middle of this burger is really red looking, doesn't seem normal, and suddenly I remembered, wait, ground beef is always supposed to be 160, 130 medium-rare is for steak. I then chatted that back to it, and it was like, oh ya, I made a mistake…

Do you actually put a thermometer in your burgers/steaks/meat when you’re cooking? That seems really weird.

Why are people downvoting this? I’ve literally never seen anyone use a thermometer to cook a burger or steak or pork chop. A whole roasted turkey, sure.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#147

Post by adonovan »

what wrote: post #141
mvdtnz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When asking a question do you not see a difference between 1. Here's the answer (but it's misinformation) 2. Here are some websites that look like they might have the answer ?

Isn’t 1 really “here’s a summary of what the websites from 2 say”?

Not always. More than once I've seen the AI confidently misquote result #1, Wikipedia.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#148

Post by dpe82 »

bee_rider wrote: post #137
Nursie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still find it amazing that the world's largest search engine, which so many use as an oracle, is so happy to put wrong information at the top of its page. My examples recently - - Looking up a hint for the casino room in the game "Blue Prince", the AI summary gave me details of the card games on offer at the "Blue Prince Casino" in the next suburb over. There is no casino there. - Looking up workers rights during a…

I find it amazing, having observed the era when Google was an up-and-coming website, that they’ve gotten so far off track. I mean, this must have been what it felt like when IBM atrophied. But, they hired the best and brightest of my generation. How’d they screw it up so bad?

Incentives.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#149

Post by rendaw »

brianwawok wrote: post #35
washadjeffmad wrote: post #30

The overviews are also wrong and difficult to get fixed. Google AI has been listing incorrect internal extensions causing departments to field calls for people trying to reach unrelated divisions and services, listing times and dates of events that don't exist at our addresses that people are showing up to, and generally misdirecting and misguiding people who really need correct information from a truth source like o…

Fun. I have people asking ChatGPT support question about my SaaS app, getting made up answers, and then cancelling because we can’t do something that we can. Can’t make this crap up. How do I teach Chat GPT every feature of a random SaaS app?

Could that be a case of defamation (chatgpt/whatever is damaging your reputation and causing monetary injury)?

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#150

Post by sgentle »

Nursie wrote: post #58
washadjeffmad wrote: post #30

The overviews are also wrong and difficult to get fixed. Google AI has been listing incorrect internal extensions causing departments to field calls for people trying to reach unrelated divisions and services, listing times and dates of events that don't exist at our addresses that people are showing up to, and generally misdirecting and misguiding people who really need correct information from a truth source like o…

I still find it amazing that the world's largest search engine, which so many use as an oracle, is so happy to put wrong information at the top of its page. My examples recently - - Looking up a hint for the casino room in the game "Blue Prince", the AI summary gave me details of the card games on offer at the "Blue Prince Casino" in the next suburb over. There is no casino there. - Looking up workers rights during a…

It's kinda old news now but I still love searching for made-up idioms.

> "You can't get boiled rice from a clown" is a phrase that plays on expectations and the absurdity of a situation.

> The phrase "never stack rocks with Elvis" is a playful way of expressing skepticism about the act of stacking rocks in natural environments.

> The saying "two dogs can't build an ocean" is a colloquial and humorous way of expressing the futility or impossibility of a grand, unachievable goal or task.

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