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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

#521

Post by mr_toad »

indigo945 wrote: post #368
cudder wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is such a silly stupid thing in the GDPR consent. - "Please don't track me." - "But what if we realllly want to?" A normal response to that would be an even more resounding FCK NO, but somehow the EU came to the completely opposite conclusion.

Claiming tracking cookies as "necessary" is often illegal under the GDPR. This is an enforcement problem, not a problem with the law itself, or the EU. "Necessary" means "necessary for fulfilment of the contract". Your name and address are necessary data when you order off Amazon, your clickstream is not.

Necessary means necessary to add it to the page for the project manager to collect their annual bonus.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#522

Post by plemer »

tyfon wrote: post #324
nightfly wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Page loads, immediately when I start scrolling and reading a popup trying to get tracking consent It was with the best of intentions but cookie banners have done more to hurt web browsing than anything else in the last decade

The banner is not the problem, the predatory tracking by webpages are. You can make a webpage without it no problem, my home page does not have it.

Yes, but is your webpage profitable?

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#523

Post by scarface_74 »

alvah wrote: post #169
scarface_74 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sites rely on ad impressions for revenue. I block ads anyway so either way they aren’t getting money from me. And if ad supported content ceases to exist, nothing of value will have been lost. I’m not morally opposed to advertising, I find ad supported content not worth reading especially on mobile.

>And if ad supported content ceases to exist, nothing of value will have been lost. "Absolutely nothing on any website that relies on ads for revenue is of any value" is a wild take.

To be more precise, it might be air value but not worth the trade off of ads - they take away the value.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#524

Post by thfuran »

hereonout2 wrote: post #347
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…

You forgot the part about when you actually get to the content, there's usually about 5 paragraphs of SEO filler text before it actually gets onto answering the topic of the post.

Either that or fifty paragraphs of ai slop blathering in circles about the topic.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#525

Post by pantulis »

benrutter wrote: post #373

A lot of the comments here are along the lines of "websites are often hostile, and AI summaries are a better user experience" which I agree with for most cases. I think the main thing to be worried about is that this model is undermining the fundamental economic model the internet's currently based on. If I create content like recipes, journalism etc, previously I had exclusive rights to my created content and could…

> I think the main thing to be worried about is that this model is undermining the fundamental economic model the internet's currently based on.

And this is the reason why Google took its sweet time to counter OpenAI's GPT3. They _had_ to come up with this, which admittedly disrupts the publishers business model but at least if Google is successful they will keep their moat as the first step in any sales funnel.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#526

Post by throwaway290 »

lelanthran wrote: post #401
throwaway290 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Dark patterns you can see are not that dark by comparison, we will need another word for coming dark patterns disguised in llm responses

> Yep. Dark patterns you can see are not that dark by comparison, we will need another word for coming dark patterns disguised in llm responses As someone else said, you can probably filter responses through a small purpose-built/trained LLM that strips away dark patterns. If you start getting mostly empty responses as a result, then there was no value prior to the stripping anyway.

If you can't tell when a big expensive llm is subliminally grooming you to like/dislike something or is selective with information then another (probably small and cheaper) llm somehow can? Arms race?

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#527

Post by scarface_74 »

croes wrote: post #208
scarface_74 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sites rely on ad impressions for revenue. I block ads anyway so either way they aren’t getting money from me. And if ad supported content ceases to exist, nothing of value will have been lost. I’m not morally opposed to advertising, I find ad supported content not worth reading especially on mobile.

So you believe in free lunch. If the ad sites die, the AI crawlers will rise the hosting costs of all others sites buy putting more traffic on them. So either they start adding ads too or the sites die also

No, I pay for Apple News, Slate, Stratechery, Downstream+ (podcast), Accidental Tech podcast, etc.

I donate to electoral-vote.com via Patreon. Most of my news comes from podcasts and those ads don’t bother me as much as web ads. I said I wasn’t morally opposed to them.

I don’t use any app that is ad supported without the option to pay for an ad free experience the same with streaming services.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#528

Post by JKCalhoun »

croes wrote: post #208
scarface_74 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sites rely on ad impressions for revenue. I block ads anyway so either way they aren’t getting money from me. And if ad supported content ceases to exist, nothing of value will have been lost. I’m not morally opposed to advertising, I find ad supported content not worth reading especially on mobile.

So you believe in free lunch. If the ad sites die, the AI crawlers will rise the hosting costs of all others sites buy putting more traffic on them. So either they start adding ads too or the sites die also

Before web advertising the entire web was a "free lunch" — if by free lunch you mean individuals putting their sites up; their only compensation being some degree of joy at spreading and sharing their passion.

The early web was eccentric and kind of … "shambly", but I would not be upset if we returned to that.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#529

Post by danaris »

manwe150 wrote: post #511
chasd00 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah recipes are the worst. I least the acknowledge themselves and give you a “jump to recipe” button most of the time. I sometimes hit the print button and just use the preview screen too.

I don’t think recipes are much at actual fault here. It seems the fault of search engines preferring returning recipes with longer stories over just-the-recipe blogs or sites like AllRecipes. We humans just have to suffer as a result of the artificial selection of what the search engines wants for us to experience.

It's not just that: recipes on their own are, AIUI, not copyrightable.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#530

Post by JKCalhoun »

alvah wrote: post #169
scarface_74 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sites rely on ad impressions for revenue. I block ads anyway so either way they aren’t getting money from me. And if ad supported content ceases to exist, nothing of value will have been lost. I’m not morally opposed to advertising, I find ad supported content not worth reading especially on mobile.

>And if ad supported content ceases to exist, nothing of value will have been lost. "Absolutely nothing on any website that relies on ads for revenue is of any value" is a wild take.

My sense is (call me naive if you like) but if the thing was of value, it would survive (or be reborn in another form) without ads. Donation supported sites (looking at you Wikipedia) or just passion projects would continue.
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