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Google changes its search box

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Re: Google changes its search box

#431

Post by BubbleRings »

monooso wrote: post #201
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…

That's some catch, that catch-22.

I see everything twice!

Re: Google changes its search box

#432

Post by xorcist »

burnte wrote: post #309
fscaramuzza wrote: post #290

What scares me about this new AI mode thingy is that every answer sounds like a systematic literature review, but only for the results. For example, if I look for users feedback about a specific product, it says "People think that..., but also that...; It's important to notice that some people ..." where with 'people' it means just a random comment on a random website just because it thought it was a good contributio…

> What scares me about this new AI mode thingy What scares me is the rampant inaccuracy. In my experience, the AI responses are wrong about 65% of the time. I just did a search today about an error talking about a disconnected link between apps, and Google AI result summary told me that the error was related to my pulling a USB drive too quickly in windows. The ONLY word similar to my query and that AI response was t…

It's nice that Google's AI summary always lists its sources. It's less nice that those sources more often than not do not corroborate the summary. It often seems to be a few random links thrown in there for good measure.

I have no idea why this is, but it is impossible that these links are primary sources of the data, if such things even exists at all. In which case, why list them?

It is certainly seems possible that the actual sources of the data is the output of some other LLM.

Re: Google changes its search box

#433

Post by margalabargala »

charcircuit wrote: post #264
margalabargala wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have no obligation to respect your wishes I have no obligation to not send all scraper-looking traffic to a black hole full of zip bombs.

You do have an obligation because what you are describing is illegal, at least in the US under the CFAA.

Okay, nix the zip bombs. What's my obligation to treat bot-shaped traffic as something I should reply to?

Re: Google changes its search box

#434

Post by andsoitis »

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?

Re: Google changes its search box

#435

Post by makeitdouble »

RyanOD wrote: post #424
thwarted wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the default "search" results are AI, it's difficult, if not impossible, to "choose", since Google is pushing the AI so hard.

In watching the demo, I didn't come away with the impression that they were removing search results. Yes, they are pushing AI hard, but users can still opt to use Google in the more traditional way. Unless I misunderstood the demo, it's definitely possible to choose.

"possible to choose" doesn't get us much.

An interesting aspect of this is the decrease in quality feedback on th organic links. If most people never get down to the actual links there is very little to tell which ones were good or if they had any relevance.

There is also that less incentive to properly maintain the search algorithms to fight SEO and spam.

For all intents and purpose, organic search results have been given a death sentence and are just waiting for the last moment.

Re: Google changes its search box

#436

Post by dminik »

thunderfork wrote: post #361
stefan_ wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What scares me are the basic usability fails it still has. Search for a few foreign language words and it will come back with paragraphs upon paragraphs of AI output in that foreign language despite me telling Google in 15 different ways that I don't speak it, nor anything else on the Google page being in that language. How are all their products always made by and for the most narrow minded people on this planet.

Kysely is the name of a typescript query builder and also Finnish for "query". Recently, it's started answering any search about Kysely with a blob of Finnish. Awesome stuff, guys, great work.

Kyselý is also a Czech word for sour. So you've also got that to look forward to.

Re: Google changes its search box

#438

Post by WarmWash »

fscaramuzza wrote: post #290

What scares me about this new AI mode thingy is that every answer sounds like a systematic literature review, but only for the results. For example, if I look for users feedback about a specific product, it says "People think that..., but also that...; It's important to notice that some people ..." where with 'people' it means just a random comment on a random website just because it thought it was a good contributio…

>where with 'people' it means just a random comment on a random website just because it thought it was a good contribution to the results.

Hate to break it to you, but this has been the backbone of "journalism" for the last decade.

Fishing Twitter for takes to fill the "people are saying" box...

Re: Google changes its search box

#439

Post by WarmWash »

burnte wrote: post #309
fscaramuzza wrote: post #290

What scares me about this new AI mode thingy is that every answer sounds like a systematic literature review, but only for the results. For example, if I look for users feedback about a specific product, it says "People think that..., but also that...; It's important to notice that some people ..." where with 'people' it means just a random comment on a random website just because it thought it was a good contributio…

> What scares me about this new AI mode thingy What scares me is the rampant inaccuracy. In my experience, the AI responses are wrong about 65% of the time. I just did a search today about an error talking about a disconnected link between apps, and Google AI result summary told me that the error was related to my pulling a USB drive too quickly in windows. The ONLY word similar to my query and that AI response was t…

Can you share the query?

Re: Google changes its search box

#440

Post by try-working »

ekidd wrote: post #65
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...

Which as some running a website raises a fascinating question. If Google is just going to crawl my sites and present information as an AI summary on their site, then what exactly do I gain by allowing Googlebot to crawl my sites?

That's Google making way for its disruptor. We'll see who that is. Imagine a search engine that just presents search results. Groundbreaking.
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