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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

#531

Post by scarface_74 »

simonklitj wrote: post #168
scarface_74 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I know hallucinations are a thing. But when I had problems lile that better prompting (don’t make assumptions) and telling it to verify all of its answers with web resources For troubleshooting an issue my prompt is usually “I am trying to do debug an issue. I’m going to give you the error message. Ask me questions one by one to help me troubleshoot. Prefer asking clarifying questions to making assumptions”. Once…

How are you going to prompt the AI overview?

Why would I use Google for this use case

“There's a library I use with extensive documentation- every method, parameter, event, configuration option conceivable is documented.”

This is the perfect use case for ChatGPT with web search. Besides aside from Google News, Google has been worthless to find any useful information for years because of SEO.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#532

Post by DanielKehoe »

I've written high-quality technical how-tos for many years, starting with PC World magazine articles (supported by ads), a book that helped people learn Ruby on Rails (sales via Amazon), and more recently a website that's good for queries like "uninstall Homebrew" or "xcode command line tools" (sponsored by a carefully chosen advertiser). With both a (small) financial incentive and the intrinsic satisfaction of doing good work that people appreciate, I know I've helped a LOT of people over four decades.

A year ago my ad-supported website had 100,000 monthly active users. Now, like the article says, traffic is down 40% thanks to Google AI Overview zero clicks. There's loss of revenue, yes, but apart from that, I'm wondering how people can find my work, if I produce more? They seldom click through on the "source" attributes, if any.

I wonder, am I standing at the gates of hell in a line that includes Tower Records and Blockbuster? Arguably because I'm among those that built this dystopia with ever-so-helpful technical content.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#533

Post by diogolsq »

sumtechguy wrote: post #516
generic92034 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition or not, dark patterns or not - sooner or later LLMs will need to earn money for their corporations.

The electric bill does not pay for itself. What is also interesting is one of the biggest search companies is using it to steer traffic away from its former 'clients'. The very websites google talked into slathering their advertisements all over themselves. By giving them money and traffic. But that worked because google got a pretty good cut of that. But now only google gets the 'above the fold' cut. That has two lo…

Good point.

Looking ahead, Search will become a de facto LLM chatbot, if it isn't already.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#534

Post by lopis »

svachalek wrote: post #429
littlecranky67 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how that will work out. Just I have an adblocker now, I could have a very simple local llm in my browser that modifies the search-AIs answer and strips obvious ads.

They won't be obvious. They'll be highly customized brain worms influencing your votes and purchases to the highest bidder.

Which sounds very illegal in most places, as clearly identifying sponsored content is required. Let's see how that turns out.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#535

Post by anton-c »

jajko wrote: post #371
poemxo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the same thing, but it's not because of format. To me, blogs and other articles feel like sales pitches, whereas comments are full of raw emotion and seem more honest. I end up seeking out discussions over buttoned up long-form articles. This is not strictly logical but I have a feeling I'm not alone.

No its pretty logical, I often get more info in comments than in article, plus many angles on topic. I only actually read the most interesting articles, often heading right into comments. Often the title sort of explains the whole topic (ie lack of parking in NY, or astronomers found the biggest quasar yet), then folks chirp in with their experiences and insight which are sometimes pretty wild.

Also if a website is terrible or the article is suspect, the top comment is usually going to be addressing that.

Yet I too often am looking for the discussion. When I see there's high quality discourse or valuable experiences being shared, I'm more likely to read the full content of the article.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#536

Post by mvieira38 »

DanielKehoe wrote: post #532

I've written high-quality technical how-tos for many years, starting with PC World magazine articles (supported by ads), a book that helped people learn Ruby on Rails (sales via Amazon), and more recently a website that's good for queries like "uninstall Homebrew" or "xcode command line tools" (sponsored by a carefully chosen advertiser). With both a (small) financial incentive and the intrinsic satisfaction of doing…

Unfortunately for you this kind of content does seem to be going the way of Blockbuster. But the writing was on the wall for years now with how much Google Search became useless due to over-SEOification of every website, LLMs were just the dagger

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#537

Post by kelvinjps10 »

pembrook wrote: post #512
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…

Yes, this is the experience on virtually every content website that used to be tolerable or even good. But this is because there is no viable monetization model for non-editorial written word content anymore and hasn’t been for a decade. Google killed the ecosystem they helped create. Google also killed the display ad market by monopolizing it with Adsense and then killed Adsense revenue sharing with creators to take…

There is filters links in unlock for these kind of things, they're called annoyances

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#540

Post by geerlingguy »

svachalek wrote: post #425
azangru wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and most players are charging money for a service The aricle talks about AI overviews. As exemplified by the AI summary at the top of Google search results page. That thing is free.

1. Create free and good product 2. Attract large user base 3. Sell user data and attention to advertisers 4. Extract maximal profit from sponsors 5. Earn billions from shit product

Hey that's like a popular Search engine's search results page!
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