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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

#251

Post by Arisaka1 »

HSO wrote: post #234
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…

> faster and easier to click the HN comments link and infer the info I want from the comments Or, youre confusing primordial desire to be aligned with perceived peers -- checking what others say, then effortlessly nodding along -- with forming your own judgment.

I absolutely do that because I got so bullied that my personality shifted from self-expression to emulation. I realized that just this week because I caught myself copying a coworker he's respected and has people laughing with his jokes, and wondered why I have the tendency to do it.

But I never expected that this would also link back to my tendency to skip an article and just stick to what the top comments of a section have, HN or Reddit.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#252

Post by habinero »

what wrote: post #146
didibus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think your reference pool is just small. I absolutely use it for meat and especially for ground meat, which has a much higher chance of contamination.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#253

Post by jonplackett »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #233

Here is the experience when clicking a link on mobile: * Page loads, immediately when I start scrolling and reading a popup trying to get tracking consent * If I am lucky, there is a "necessary only". When unlucky I need to click "manage options" and first see how to reject all tracking * There is a sticky banner on top/bottom taking 20-30% of my screen upselling me a subscription or asking me to install their app. U…

I made this game inspired by all the dark patterns from darkpatterns.org - every pop up is based on a real dark pattern

https://www.termsandconditions.game/

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#254

Post by jacquesm »

Arisaka1 wrote: post #251
HSO wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> faster and easier to click the HN comments link and infer the info I want from the comments Or, youre confusing primordial desire to be aligned with perceived peers -- checking what others say, then effortlessly nodding along -- with forming your own judgment.

I absolutely do that because I got so bullied that my personality shifted from self-expression to emulation. I realized that just this week because I caught myself copying a coworker he's respected and has people laughing with his jokes, and wondered why I have the tendency to do it. But I never expected that this would also link back to my tendency to skip an article and just stick to what the top comments of a sect…

> wondered why I have the tendency to do it

Because when you were still swinging from the trees a some generations back that was a survival trait.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#255

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

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?

Corporations are basically little dictatorships, so those best and brightest must do what those above them say or be sacked.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#256

Post by jacquesm »

watwut wrote: post #195
throwaway992673 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The troll gives me the main idea without having to find five tiny x's on the screen like some sadistic minigame then paywall me. I'll take the troll.

They dont. Most commenters react to the title and preexistent opinions. Rhey frequently misinterpret the article too - misconstructing arguments they dont like and such.

Most commenters react to each other, either to the comment itself or to different interpretations and/or knowledge about the subject of TFA. It is the top level comments that are supposed to react to the article.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#257

Post by padjo »

what wrote: post #146
didibus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People are downvoting you because you’ve come onto a website populated by engineers and called someone weird for using objective measurements.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#258

Post by throwaway81523 »

kome wrote: post #160
skydhash wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

js cult will never ever understand this. designers need the courage to work with html+css only.

Kill css too.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#259

Post by pxtail »

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?

> How do I teach Chat GPT every feature of a random SaaS app?

You need to wait until they offer it as a paid feature. And they (and other LLM providers) will offer it.

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