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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

#461

Post by pflenker »

Disposal8433 wrote: post #428
hereonout2 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have noticed that a lot. For example: What is the price of the Switch 2? The Switch 2 can be purchased with money.

Recipe for Foo. Foo has always been my favorite dish. I fondly remember all the times my grandma made this for me. My grandma, who was born on August 2, 1946, as the daughter of… (10 more pages of text) To cook Foo the way my grandma did, you first need some Bar. Bar is originally native to the reclusive country of… (20 more pages of text)

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#462

Post by djeastm »

toenail wrote: post #431
vouaobrasil wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not imply that future progress is a good thing, nor does it imply that future progress will even be useful to the majority. It boggles my mind how some people make the logical inference that "all progress is good" based on "some past progress was useful".

Do you think that having fast, distraction-free access to relevant information is not useful?

It is useful, but it assumes the information is trustworthy. At least with websites you could discern some credibility based on the organization publishing the information. With AI summaries, it's just "Google's latest model seems to think this is the answer, good luck!"

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#463

Post by carlosjobim »

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…

> Anyways, luckily I did not get sick.

Why would you purchase meat that you suspect is diseased? Even if you cook it well-done, all the (now dead) bacteria and their byproducts are still inside. I don't understand why people do this to themselves? If I have any suspicion about some meat, I'll throw it away. I'm not going to cook it.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#464

Post by RamblingCTO »

I think it's a google problem. The AI summary is often times wrong so I don't bother. But the pages are garbage as well, so normal users won't click on that looking for information. Dark forest and all that. Pages started to optimize for Google and not humans. Humans don't visit anymore. Duh

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#465

Post by horrorente »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #394
benrutter wrote: post #373

A lot of the comments here are along the lines of "websites are often hostile, and AI summaries are a better user experience" which I agree with for most cases. I think the main thing to be worried about is that this model is undermining the fundamental economic model the internet's currently based on. If I create content like recipes, journalism etc, previously I had exclusive rights to my created content and could…

> I think the main thing to be worried about is that this model is undermining the fundamental economic model the internet's currently based on. This would be lovely. > I think the worst case scenario is that people stop publishing content on the web altogether. The most likely one is that search/summary engines eat up money that previously came from content creators. More than likely, people return to publishing con…

> More than likely, people return to publishing content because they love the subject matter and not because it is an angle to “create content” or “gain followers” or show ads. No more “the top 25 hats in July 2025” AI slopfest SEO articles when I look for a hat, but a thoughtful series of reviews with no ads or affiliate links, just because someone is passionate about hats. The horror! The horror!

I disagree with that. There are still people out there doing that out of passion, that hasn't changed (it's just harder to find). Bad actors who are only out there for the money will continue trying to get the money. Blogs might not be relevant anymore, but social media influencing is still going to be a thing. SEO will continue to exist, but now it's targeted to influence AIs instead of the position in Google search results. AIs will need to become (more) profitable, which means they will include advertising at some point. Instead of companies paying Google to place their products in the search or influencers through affiliate links, they will just pay AI companies to place their products in AI results or influencers to create fake reviews trying to influence the AI bots. A SEO slop article is at least easy to detect, recommendations from AIs are much harder to verify.

Also it's going to hit journalism. Not everyone can just blog because they are passionate about something. Any content produced by professionals is either going to be paywalled even more or they need to find different sources of income threatening journalistic integrity. And that gives even more ways to bad actors with money to publish news in their interest for free and gaining more influence on the public debate.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#466

Post by garylkz »

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…

That's because AI is still in the honeymoon phase, unless it's a paying service, at some point the summary will start to have context relevant ads.

Also, I felt like in long term that's going to kill off the good faith of all those smaller sites that are actually good, while the bigger ones still produce subpar contents.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#467

Post by quectophoton »

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…

For those who want to experience it: https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/

The only inaccurate thing of that meme page is that you only need to uncheck 5 cookie "partners", when in reality there should be at least a few hundred.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#469

Post by djeastm »

gtsop wrote: post #391
7222aafdcf68cfe wrote: post #364

What current incentive is left for people to publish on the internet? Discovery mechanisms are less effective than before, people no longer visit your website, copyright is dead and in the end we're just feeding an insatiable machine with slave labour. Or am I missing something ?

What was the initial incentive for people to publish on the internet before ad revenue was a thing?

The incentive was often creating a community around a shared interest. Good luck doing that with AI summaries stopping people from visiting the sites.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#470

Post by AlecSchueler »

graemep wrote: post #448
AlecSchueler wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But someone in a remote part of England will get the same advice as someone in central London, The current system might not have perfect geographic granularity but that doesn't mean it isn't preferable to one that gives advice from half the world away. > Human biology is the same, diseases are the same, and the difference in available treatments is not usually all that different Accepted medical definitions differ,…

England is not "half the world away" from Scotland.

No, the United States is.
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