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Google changes its search box

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Re: Google changes its search box

#691

Post by CSMastermind »

mghackerlady wrote: post #135
pclowes wrote: post #22

I 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 think LLMs are good answer engines, but terrible search engines. For example, if I just want the answer to "How do I foo this bar with a thingamajig", or "what kind of foo exists for bar", LLMs are 100% better because they'll give me an answer without trying to sell me their thing or pump me with ads. It also lets me go more in depth than the very surface level seo spam sites that appear when you do a search like t…

That hasn't been my experience, I use LLMs in place of search. Two examples from tonight that I asked Grok for:

> Can you find the girl who did a bunch of posts critisizing David Graeber's Debt? I thought it was really well done

> I saw a comment on hackernews a while ago about the optimal amount of credit card fraud being higher than zero because of game theory dynamics, can you find it.

In both cases it turned up the exact posts I was looking for in like 30 seconds which would have taken me much longer using traditional search. I've had similar success looking for technical documentation. It's downright magical how they're able to turn my vague idea of what I'm looking for into a pointer to the exact thing.

Re: Google changes its search box

#693

Post by Andrex »

sleepycat801 wrote: post #402
Andrex wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speculation: I could see a future where Google populates a footer on results with the website logos of the sources. Presumably, the new web will require users to memorize websites/brands and go directly to those sites if they see a lot of their results are being provided by one source. Websites may go back to being simply labors of love.

I rely far more on bookmarks and memorised URLs now.

This is the future I see happening. And, I don't think it will be a total apocalypse. The web will endure.

Re: Google changes its search box

#694

Post by jcattle »

monkpit wrote: post #631
wvenable wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a catch-22. Without google crawling your site, you don't get any new traffic. But with google crawling your site, you also might not get any traffic. AI summarization has already causes issues for sites like rtings where people are no longer visiting the site but still making use of the data presented there. Leading to rtings not getting enough traffic to continue to post their data. It is an existential crisis…

Step 1, Google serves info directly and consumers rejoice Step 2, Google extinguishes the web and nobody has a reason to publish content, consumers lament but are trapped, Google has created a platform to serve content instead of links Step 3 (or maybe 2a), Google is now monetizing their content machine Step 4, Google offers people a way to contribute to the content machine, make some $$ per N views, whatever. People…

I mean this is already (kind of) the case for video.

There's no real mainstream way outside of youtube to make meaningful money with free video content.

But yes, interesting thought which does kind of make sense. The marketplace-ification of the textual web.

Re: Google changes its search box

#696

Post by CalRobert »

salomonk_mur wrote: post #530
nicbou wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has reduced traffic to my website by around 65%. I live from that website. My income is a function of the traffic it gets. I spent 9 years of my life putting hard-earned information on the internet, and now big tech uses it to enrich themselves while putting me out of work. Even my backup plan - software development - is being devalued to hell. It's so damn depressing. We'll get the internet that we deserve.

To be fair, the traffic you had was mostly routed by them as well. Google giveth, Google taketh away.

Had they been correctly punished for anticompetitive practices there would be other search engines with meaningful market share.

Re: Google changes its search box

#697

Post by arisAlexis »

ozim wrote: post #689
pflenker wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of years back I worked with a company which maintained specific data which was the main traffic driver on that page. Google approached them and wanted to pay for the rights to get the data and display it on top of the search results, a feature which was fairly new back then. This was an interesting dilemma because it was very clear that the money was way less than the loss in ad revenue due to traffic drop,…

Then we go and pay to Cloudeflare or other cloud providers you host sites with to prevent Google from scraping. Let the big guys fight it out. There is money in protecting the websites. If you host with OVH they are interested in you making money so you can pay them.

Ok but how would people find your website then

Re: Google changes its search box

#698

Post by popcorncowboy »

ex-aws-dude wrote: post #651
spencerflem wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is the google is the bot

Yeah but google will inject ads, my future LLM bot will filter them out Why would I want to be restricted to google’s “view” of the info

Assumes you'll be able to parse out, or even discern the ads. "May contain product placement". The content is the ad.

Re: Google changes its search box

#699

Post by RyanHamilton »

mrighele wrote: post #678
nicbou wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people will. The vast majority won’t. You are not playing for an audience, only for crawlers, so what is the point?

Those who won’t were doing it for the money. Those who continue are those who do it for passion, or those whose recipe is just a way to attract people to their business (e.g. kitchenware company). I don’t think it is necessarily bad, the quantity will decrease but the quality may even improve

I built a passion reference site. A large part of that passion came from knowing and talking to the people I was helping. One person emailing or saying thanks would later help power me through to create more useful articles. Enriching openai/claude/ms/google and no thanks from an individual, has disincentivized me from writing more.

Re: Google changes its search box

#700

Post by jcattle »

andsoitis wrote: post #434
simonw wrote: post #10

Nilay Patel has been talking about "Google Zero" - the moment when Google effectively stops sending any traffic to other sites - for a few years now: https://www.theverge.com/24167865/google-zero-search-crash-h...

Isn’t Google’s ads flywheel depend on them sending traffic to websites?

Yes, but this just shows how google is not repeating mistakes of the Kodaks and Blockbusters of the world.

They keep innovating even if it means cannabilizing their main revenue stream. Which increases the chances that you will not still be stuck producing film emulsions while everyone else is slowly making bank doing digital.

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