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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

#331

Post by LinXitoW »

teddyh wrote: post #267
croes wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that also kills the good sites.

Only if those “good sites” were dependent on advertisements for survival.

How many of the "good sites" do you pay for regularly? 99.9% of ALL sites are ad-funded, good or bad. Most people, even people with the disposable income, don't pay for the good sites, esp. because their value is only fractions of a cent from that one google search a month.

My irrational hope is that the "good" sites establish a shared Spotify-esque model, where I pay a basic subscription that then gets distributed roughly by usage to all the websites. There is no chance in hell anyone is willing to have the 20 subscriptions to support all the websites they've gotten utility from (directly OR indirectly) this month.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#332

Post by Barbing »

jonplackett wrote: post #301
seszett wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also get that.

Weird only some people getting an error. Works ok for me. It’s on a very old Heroku hosting plan. I should probably update that one day.

LMK, reporting in as well: broken when trying multiple ways on my end and wanna play! Great idea!

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#333

Post by pbhjpbhj »

wat10000 wrote: post #104
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…

For years, a search for “is it safe to throw used car batteries into the ocean” would show an overview saying that not only is it safe, it’s beneficial to ocean life, so it’s a good thing to do. At some point, an article about how Google was showing this crap made it to the top of the rankings and they started taking the overview from it rather than the original Quora answer it used before. Somehow it still got it wr…

It looks like the specific phrase form is blocked in Google Search's AI header. It seems most likely that this was because it was being gamed. Searching "is it safe to throw used car batteries into the ocean" gets links to the meme.

All the ML tools seem to clearly say it's not safe, nor ethical - if you ask about throwing batteries in the sea then Google Search's summary is what you'd expect, completely inline with other tools.

If a large swathe of people choose to promote a position that is errant, 'for the memes' or whatever reason, then you're going to break tools that rely on broad agreement of many sources.

It seems like Google did the right thing here - but it also looks like a manual fix/intervention. Do Google still claim not to do that? Is there a watchdog routine that finds these 'attacks' and mitigates the effects?

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#334

Post by ethbr1 »

weinzierl wrote: post #309
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…

What you describe is subtly different from what is in the article. The article is about Google (and other traditional search engines) snatching away clicks from web site owners. What you describe is AI tools (for lack of a better word[1]) snatching away traffic from the ruling gatekeepers of the web. I think the latter is a much bigger shift and might well be the end of Google. By extension it will be the end of SEO…

> everyone will see a fight to be the first one to be accessed to get an opportunity to gaslight the agent into their view of the world

In this model, only monetizable content will be generated though.

As much as we abhor what advertising has done to the web, at least it’s independent of content: pair quality content with ads, make money.

In the brave new AI search world, only content which itself is directly monetizable will be created. E.g. astroturf ads

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#335

Post by OldfieldFund »

dirkc wrote: post #329

At some stage Google will need to be accountable for answers they are hosting on their own site. The argument of "we're only indexing info on other sites" changes when you are building a tool to generate content and hosting that content on your own domain. I'm guilty of not clicking when I'm satisfied with the AI answer. I know it can be wrong. I've seen it be wrong multiple times. But it's right at the top and tells…

Another problem is that you have to click twice:

1. The anchor icon.

2. Then one of the sites that appear on the right (on desktop).

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#336

Post by simgt »

jdietrich wrote: post #315
tmountain wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is following the drug dealer model. “The first dose is free!” Given the cost incurred, lots of dark patterns will be coming for sure.

It's a market where nobody has a particularly deep moat and most players are charging money for a service. Open weight models aren't too far behind proprietary models, particularly for mundane queries. The cost of inference is plummeting and it's already possible to run very good models at pennies per megatoken. I think it's unreasonably pessimistic to assume that dark patterns are an inevitability.

For the sake of argument, none of the typical websites with the patterns described have a moat, and the cost of hosting them has plummeted a while ago. It's not inevitable but it's likely, and they will be darker if they are embedded in the models' output...

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#338

Post by aspenmayer »

lazide wrote: post #322
aspenmayer wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (and angry potential customer) An angry potential customer who demands one work for free is probably not the kind of business arrangement that most folks would find agreeable. I don’t know where these people get off, but they’re free riders on the information superhighway. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

That same person might have actually paid money if they weren’t (somewhat legitimately) lied to about it being free. Or just not gone. Instead it’s the worst outcome for everyone, and everyone is angry and thinks each other are assholes. I guess that does sum up America the last few years eh?

The anger is misdirected, as it is a reaction to being confronted with one’s own ignorance and then shooting the messenger. In the hypothetical, that is. I don’t look at it as a lie exactly on the part of AI, but a failure of the user to actually check first party authoritative sources for that kind of info before showing up and acting entitled to a bill of goods you were never sold for any price. Even if it were free, you would still have to show up and claim a badge or check in, at which point they are free to present you with terms and conditions while you attend the event. I think the story says more about users and how they are marketed to than it does about AI and its capabilities. I think AI will probably get better faster than people will get used to the new post-AI normal, and maybe even after that. A lot of market participants seem to want that to happen, so some growing pains are normal with these kinds of disruptive technologies.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#339

Post by Barbing »

visarga wrote: post #277
ssss11 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don’t try to exit or you’ll get another pop up “why are you leaving? Please don’t go”

Sometimes they hack the back navigation function and present their own clone of Google Discover feed. If you are not careful you might end up in a different feed.

Anyone know the largest site that does this reliably? I've seen e.g. Meta's FB mess with the back button but not the cloning grift.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#340

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jacquesm wrote: post #262
andrei_says_ wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their goal has always been to be the gatekeeper.

I don't think that was true for Google in the first year. But after that it rapidly became their goal.

You think? For several years they definitely kept out the way and provided links to get to the best results fast. By the time they dropped "don't be evil" they certainly were acting against users.

It started well, agreed. But my recollection is the good Google lasted several years.

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