So good SEO will require prompt injection now?
Google changes its search box
51–60 of 961 posts
Re: Google changes its search box
#52>Google’s AI Overviews will also allow users to ask follow-up questions in AI Mode, beginning Tuesday, the company noted.
have i been A/B tested into something, or has this been live for months? this doens't seem new.
Re: Google changes its search box
#53Objecting to this from the user end seems a bit like complaining the original Google was trying to be too magic when what you wanted was AltaVista. This has been the inevitable direction the whole time. The real problem here is assuming this takes off what incentives will anyone have to provide the information to feed the beast?
>Objecting to this from the user end seems a bit like complaining the original Google was trying to be too magic when what you wanted was AltaVista. This has been the inevitable direction the whole time.
Did AltaVista get replaced by the owner of the site to justify a giant investment?
Re: Google changes its search box
#54I don't trust facts from LLMs. When I am searching for something, I usually want to find primary sources. As soon as a number is involved, I do my best to not even look at the AI output. Even though the result is often good and combines information from multiple sources, it can also get things wrong by combining information from different eras or just plain outdated advice. AFAICT, without primary sources, the result…
You can ask them to cite their sources. It's very good practice to do so, and to check those sources, because I've found that about 30-40% of the time their source doesn't support their answer at all.
If it's wrong 2 out of 5 times, why even waste your time going to it in the first place? That's a massive failure rate.
Re: Google changes its search box
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not at all in the same boat as you; I do not and likely will never primarily rely on LLMs for information. But it's fascinating to hear that even folks who do don't find this approach useful.
I'm not jumping in with both feet, either, but "never" is a very big word.
"Primarily" is the other key there. I'll use it from time to time with sources. But it's not first-line acceptable.
Re: Google changes its search box
#56Kind of Google to create a market opening for its competitors like this. I hope Kagi, Bing, and DuckDuckGo are taking notes.
I'm sure there's a niche for a product for search nerds. Something that leans into inverted indexes like the classic Lexis/Nexis search. But it's got to have Google-like coverage.
Niche + Google-like coverage is not very economically viable. To store and update a search index of that size requires a lot of resources, and being niche means you don’t have a lot of resources.
Very few of the smaller search engines actually do their own indexing for exactly this reason.
Re: Google changes its search box
#57That's why Kagi is the only subscription I don't actively think about cancelling. For the love of god, keep me away from Google and all of THAT. If Kagi goes down the same path, I'll selfhost something or just return to monkey and use link indexes and the favorites list + the native search of websites.
Self hosting a web search engine is probably quite a feat
I believe it is a thing. Saw it somewhere, like a peer to peer search engine.
Re: Google changes its search box
#58I understand why they are doing this. My Google search usage is easily down 50%+. I doubt I am unique here. While there are times where I want pure search (Kagi, Old Google) I mostly use LLMs to search now and have them provide me links for source data. When I do use LLMs as a search engine I always want it integrated into my AI workflows with access to tools and scripts etc. I never want to have a conversation with…
I'm not at all in the same boat as you; I do not and likely will never primarily rely on LLMs for information. But it's fascinating to hear that even folks who do don't find this approach useful.
I think LLMs are better at finding the most helpful sources now, but that's more a testament to how much the front page of web search has lost to low value LLM content.
Re: Google changes its search box
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can ask them to cite their sources. It's very good practice to do so, and to check those sources, because I've found that about 30-40% of the time their source doesn't support their answer at all.
All of Google AI Mode is sourced.
Yes, and those sources often contradict the AI summary if you follow them (or if you know anything about the topic).
Re: Google changes its search box
#60I no longer use Google search for simple coding questions, even though it uses a bunch of Claude tokens to ask, for example, what's the null-safe operator in JavaScript vs ruby because it sends half my project with the question, I'll still just ask in my ide rather than a google search.
I caught myself yesterday starting to ask Claude in my ide what ship did grace and Rocky take back to Rocky's homeworld.