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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

#631

Post by IshKebab »

zdragnar wrote: post #548
IshKebab wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... Yeah I've had ChatGPT tell me you can't do things with Make that you totally can. They aren't perfect. What do you expect Google to do about it?

Don't ship fundamentally broken products would be step one for me. Sadly, there's a lot of people who are really excited about things that only occasionally work.

Lots of things only occasionally work but are still very useful. Google search for example.

Would you say "pah why are you shipping a search engine that only sometimes finds what I'm looking for?"?

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#632

Post by altcognito »

dahart wrote: post #584
DanielKehoe wrote: post #532

I've written high-quality technical how-tos for many years, starting with PC World magazine articles (supported by ads), a book that helped people learn Ruby on Rails (sales via Amazon), and more recently a website that's good for queries like "uninstall Homebrew" or "xcode command line tools" (sponsored by a carefully chosen advertiser). With both a (small) financial incentive and the intrinsic satisfaction of doing…

> am I standing at the gates of hell in a line that includes Tower Records and Blockbuster? Maybe, but there’s a big difference - Netflix doesn’t rely on Blockbuster, and Spotify doesn’t need Tower Records. Google AI results do need your articles, and it returns the content of them to your readers without sending you the traffic. And Google is just trying to fend off ChatGPT and Meta and others, who absolutely will,…

I mean, there's always been a grey area even when it came to tiny snippets in the results, though those actually encouraged you to click through when you found the right result.

The beginning of the end was including Wikipedia entries directly in the search results, although arguably even some of the image results are high quality enough to warrant skipping visiting the actual website (if you were lucky enough to get the image at the target site in the first place) So maybe it goes back sooner than that.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#633

Post by afavour »

kylebenzle wrote: post #611
brokencode wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay for the subscription and don’t see any ads. It comes with YouTube Music. It’s great.

In the old days people would pay to host video content and now people pay Google to watch other people's hosted video content. It's funny how easily people can be brainwashed into giving companies money for nothing. I'm still waiting for the first company to start selling bottled air next!

You're talking as if video content has no intrinsic value of its own. Of course it does.

"Now people pay cable companies to watch TV shows. It's funny how easily people can be brainwashed into giving companies money for nothing."

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#634

Post by tempodox »

brokencode wrote: post #562
pembrook wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is the experience on virtually every content website that used to be tolerable or even good. But this is because there is no viable monetization model for non-editorial written word content anymore and hasn’t been for a decade. Google killed the ecosystem they helped create. Google also killed the display ad market by monopolizing it with Adsense and then killed Adsense revenue sharing with creators to take…

YouTube is 20 years old now. Either the encrapification is very slow or they landed on a decent ad model. Plus there is a subscription that eliminates ads. I think it’s a great experience for users. Many creators also seem to do well too. I think this should be the model for a new generation of search. Obviously there will be ads/sponsored results. But there should be a subscription option to eliminate the ads. The k…

> …they landed on a decent ad model.

You must be joking. YT is so insufferable, I can only watch it via Firefox with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger active. And even then only if and as long as I absolutely have to.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#635

Post by fortyseven »

pembrook wrote: post #512
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…

Yes, this is the experience on virtually every content website that used to be tolerable or even good. But this is because there is no viable monetization model for non-editorial written word content anymore and hasn’t been for a decade. Google killed the ecosystem they helped create. Google also killed the display ad market by monopolizing it with Adsense and then killed Adsense revenue sharing with creators to take…

> YouTube is still young

I almost spit out my drink.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#636

Post by nathan_douglas »

johnisgood wrote: post #412
jgord wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not to mention the mandatory cloudflare "are you human" pre-vetting page Im seeing on 15% of sites. jesus wept.

And that I often have to wait for it to automatically get through it, which it does not, requiring me to click to verify I am indeed a human. Even if I am not even using Tor or VPNs.

Assuming that clicking to verify even works, which is shaky. On Safari, it seems to just loop me most of the time... which bums me out, since I generally don't have many issues with Safari.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#637

Post by lacksconfidence »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #476
habinero wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your reference pool is just small. I absolutely use it for meat and especially for ground meat, which has a much higher chance of contamination.

I suspect your reference pool is the small one. Most people buy their burgers in a packet and hence follow the timing instructions on that packet.

Perhaps this varies by region? I don't know anyone that buys burgers in a packet. They buy ground beef and either make patties or balls (for smash burgers).

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#638

Post by edanm »

gspencley wrote: post #592
edanm wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk. Maybe that's true today (though even today I'm not sure) but how long before AI becomes better than just finding random text on a website? After all, AI can theoretically ask follow-up questions that are relevant, can explain subtleties peculiar to a specific situation or request, can rephrase things in ways that are clearer for the end user. Btw, "What temperature should a food be cooked to" is a classic exampl…

> Btw, "What temperature should a food be cooked to" is a classic example of something where lots of people and lots of sources repeat incorrect information, which is often ignored by people who actually cook. Famously, the temp that is often "recommended" is only the temp at which bacteria/whatever is killed instantly I love this reply because you support your own point by repeating information that is technically i…

> And I had to comment because it is beautifully ironic. Almost as if that paragraph in your comment is, itself, AI slop lol

Glad to be of service :) I think that's the first time a comment of mine has been accused of being AI slop. Sorry to say, every word - correct or incorrect - is mine.

> To qualify myself, I have a background in food service.

I'm just a person who watches cooking YouTube a bit, so right off the bat - I'll defer to your expertise on this.

I'm not sure we really disagree much though. My rough memory is that the guidelines specify temperature at which things are killed, I don't know if "instantly" or "15 seconds" really makes a difference in practice.

> Sous Vide cooking is the most widely understood method of preparation where we hold foods at temperatures that are FAR lower than what is typically recommended, but held for much longer.

Sous Vide is where I was first exposed to this concept, but I was more referring to things like chicken breasts, etc, which often aren't great at the minimal internal temperature, but I've seen YouTube "chefs" recommend cooking them to a slightly lower temperature, banking on the idea that they will effectively be at a slightly lower temperature, but long enough to still effectively kill bacteria. I've even seen criticism of the FDA charts for exactly this reason.

But to clarify, this is far outside any expertise I actually have.

> I think your comment is an application of the dunning kruger effect. You know a little bit and because of that you think you know way more than you actually do.

Absolutely possible.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#639

Post by tempodox »

quectophoton wrote: post #467
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…

For those who want to experience it: https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/ The only inaccurate thing of that meme page is that you only need to uncheck 5 cookie "partners", when in reality there should be at least a few hundred.

And you get a laundry list of several hundred switches that you have to manually switch off to deny their “legitimate interests”.
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