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Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

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Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#151

Post by userbinator »

massysett wrote: post #149
bgwalter wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could simply restore the search quality they had in 2010. No one wants these "AI" summaries except for people looking to get promoted for "having an impact" inside Google. What Google is doing right now is sabotage the search moat they do have. They are throwing it all away because of some "AI" rainmakers inside the company.

> No one wants these "AI" summaries Not true, I use them all the time. They have links available for when I want further information, which is not very often.

I never use them. Especially when they can be completely wrong (and the problem is how will you know that it's wrong?): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44142113

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#152

Post by bdangubic »

triceratops wrote: post #146
bdangubic wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are losing more and more search to “AI.” my 12-year old never uses Google and couple of times I asked her to “Google it” she literally rolled on the floor laughing and called me a “boomer” :)

I wonder if "boomer" is going to become a generic term for "my parents' generation".

100%

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#153

Post by simonw »

This story has a few instances of suspicious numbers like these:

> When Dotdash merged with Meredith in 2021, Google search accounted for around 60% of the company’s traffic, Vogel said. Today, it is about one-third. Overall traffic is growing, thanks to efforts including newsletters and the MyRecipes recipe locker.

If traffic is up but percentage of that traffic from search is down, does that mean search traffic is down overall? Or does it mean that strategies to diversify their traffic sources are working as planned?

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#154

Post by bdangubic »

userbinator wrote: post #151
massysett wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one wants these "AI" summaries Not true, I use them all the time. They have links available for when I want further information, which is not very often.

I never use them. Especially when they can be completely wrong (and the problem is how will you know that it's wrong?): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44142113

you are linking to “AI responses can make a mistake” post???! Google’s top 86 search results are ads :)

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#155

Post by bionhoward »

waldrews wrote: post #118
ajross wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to my untrained eyes like Google's AI search is actually the best on the market, no? Seems like a lot of HN users have trained themselves not to type queries into the search prompt anymore and then complain about the quality of a product they don't use.

The model that's doing AI Summary for search results - that presumably needs to be fast and cheap because of the scale - is still sufficiently bad as to give people a bad taste. Presumably they're frantically working to scale their better models for this use case. If you could get Gemini Pro on every search result the experience would be effectively perfect (in the sense of better error rates than what a non-speciali…

One funny thing about Google summaries is “copy text” merges all of the links into a giant blob which gets interpreted as a single extremely long broken link. Not a great sign for attention to detail if they don’t even copy their own pasta (it’s been like this for months)

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#157

Post by Aziell »

I use AI a lot myself and it definitely makes getting information faster but it feels like something’s missing, like the fun of digging for the truth yourself. These AI tools can just give you the answers, which saves time, but it also takes away a lot of depth and variety. Without realizing it, we might also be losing our ability to think independently.

Do you think AI can really replace all the value traditional news brings?

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#158

Post by thrwaway55 »

Aziell wrote: post #157

I use AI a lot myself and it definitely makes getting information faster but it feels like something’s missing, like the fun of digging for the truth yourself. These AI tools can just give you the answers, which saves time, but it also takes away a lot of depth and variety. Without realizing it, we might also be losing our ability to think independently. Do you think AI can really replace all the value traditional ne…

Isn't this already the case but you can replace traditional news with personal investigation? What is another layer of indirection?

I recall going to a townhall vote on some legislation a company I was employed with at the time wanted vs what the Teamster Union wanted and both sides doing body double line rigging to get their viewpoint in during "open comments" but I couldn't find a single news article about the obvious tactic by both sides.

Do you think traditional news can really replace all the value personally verifiable data brings?

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#159

Post by bcoates »

ajross wrote: post #128
bcoates wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every once in a while I bother not ignoring a Google AI overview, then I waste some time fact-checking it and find out it's wrong. Most recently about a python library (where it hallucinated a function that doesn't exist, complete with documentation and usage examples) and breaking news (where it authoritatively said [non-culture war, non-controversial, local] thing doesn't happen, above a dog-bites-man story from a…

> Every once in a while Pretty much what I said, no? You don't use the product and when you do, do it through a filter[1] where you only remember the bugs. Do you use other AI search products and find that they don't show this behavior? [1] I mean, come on: framing it as "bother not ignoring" is just a dead giveaway that you aren't doing a product evaluation in good faith!

I am doing the review in good faith though--by default, I scroll past to the first result, then if it seems unsuitable and I'm desperate enough I check the LLM thingy. If it were providing any value it would sometimes be both novel and correct.

Usually it's non-novel (correctly-harmelessly but unhelpfully, restating the web search results). When it's novel it's because it's wrong.

I would remember the situation where reading the LLM thingy added any value if it ever happened. The weird little UI thing they do where they only show the LLM result if you wait for it to render makes this very easy, I have to scroll up to even consider it.

Re: Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers

#160

Post by jmyeet »

Previously, if you searched for "mortgage calculator" in Google, you'd get one at the top, embedded in the page. It was fast, simple and did what you wanted. I guess because of "competition" it was removed at some point. Now all the top results are terrible. The sites are slow. They ask too many questsions. They're clearly trying to generate leads and sell ads. Whereas Google's just... worked. There are good calculators out there but they don't rank as highly.

How exactly is this good for consumers?

My point is that a lot of publishers are what I call "low value". They're rent-seekers. They have easily obtained information, often user-generated, and their role is to gatekeep that and make you click just one more page to get a result because hey that's another slew of ads they can show you.

I'm sympathetic to the argument that LLMs steal. At the same time, we have to recognize that a lot of publishers are intentionally useless rent-seekers so it's hard for me to feel sorry for them.

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