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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

#381

Post by pjc50 »

vismit2000 wrote: post #159
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…

You might want to try out https://hackernews.betacat.io/

.. strictly worse than HN's UI, and with a cookie banner and an ad.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#382

Post by jgord »

hereonout2 wrote: post #347
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…

You forgot the part about when you actually get to the content, there's usually about 5 paragraphs of SEO filler text before it actually gets onto answering the topic of the post.

not to mention the mandatory cloudflare "are you human" pre-vetting page Im seeing on 15% of sites.

jesus wept.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#383

Post by pjc50 »

SwtCyber wrote: post #293
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…

But it's kind of a vicious cycle: users avoid bad sites, traffic drops, sites shove in more ads to survive, UX gets worse, and so on

Unless there's a conscious reset, like the Onion reboot. Now with physical copies!

Doesn't scale, but maybe that's the only way to survive.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#384

Post by lazide »

indigo945 wrote: post #368
cudder wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is such a silly stupid thing in the GDPR consent. - "Please don't track me." - "But what if we realllly want to?" A normal response to that would be an even more resounding FCK NO, but somehow the EU came to the completely opposite conclusion.

Claiming tracking cookies as "necessary" is often illegal under the GDPR. This is an enforcement problem, not a problem with the law itself, or the EU. "Necessary" means "necessary for fulfilment of the contract". Your name and address are necessary data when you order off Amazon, your clickstream is not.

If the content is free, monetizing you is clearly necessary (/s, kinda)

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#385

Post by da25 »

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.

Probably also because a trust in the content of the website and articles has dropped because of much Enshittification has happened and a more trustworthy signal has found its location in people's discussion.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#386

Post by nicbou »

tmountain wrote: post #279
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…

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.

AI is built by the same companies that built the last generation of hostile technology, and they're currently offering it at a loss. Once they have encrusted themselves in our everyday lives and killed the independent web for good, you can bet they will recoup on their investment.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#387

Post by pjc50 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #162
rendaw wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Companies don't own the AI outputs, but I wonder if they could be found to be publishers of AI content they provide. I really doubt it, though. I expect courts will go out of their way to not answer that question or just say no.

> I wonder if they could be found to be publishers of AI content they provide.

I don't see how it could be otherwise - who else is the publisher?

I'm waiting for a collision of this with, say, English libel law or German "impressum" law. I'm fairly sure the libel issue is already being resolved with regexes on input or output for certain names.

The real question of the rest of the 21st century is: high trust or low trust? Do we start holding people and corporations liable for lying about things, or do we retreat to a world where only information you get from people you personally know can be trusted and everything else has to be treated with paranoia? Because the latter is much less productive.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#388

Post by robbomacrae »

jr000 wrote: post #380
toofy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … don't block crawlers. this rhymes a lot with gangsterism. if you don’t pay our protection fee it would be a shame if your building caught on fire.

How else do you expect them to get the information from your site if you block them from accessing it?

The expectation should be on the LLM to admit they don’t know the answer rather than blame devs for not allowing crawling.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#389

Post by nicbou »

ileonichwiesz wrote: post #375
moontear wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they do? Paid subscriptions for Gemini, ChatGPT and Copilot are a thing. If Google throws in a free AI summary in their search it only helps promoting Gemini in the long run.

Look up the numbers. OpenAI actually loses money on every paid subscription, and they’re burning through billions of dollars every year. Even if you convince a fraction of the users to pay for it, it’s still not a sustainable model.

Even if they were profitable, the investors would feel that it's not profitable enough. They won't stop at breaking even.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#390

Post by viraptor »

dspillett wrote: post #316
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…

>* If I am lucky, there is a "necessary only".* I never use those. I suspect that in many cases if there are "legitimate interest" options¹ those will remain opted-in. ---- [1] which I read as "we see your preference not to be stalked online, but fuck you and your silly little preferences we want to anyway"

They will because that's how things are supposed to work. For example your preference about tracking will get stored for that site. The same as login details. Those are legitimate interests and you never get an option for them.
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