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AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

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701–710 of 872 posts

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#701
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun. I have people asking ChatGPT support question about my SaaS app, getting made up answers, and then cancelling because we can’t do something that we can. Can’t make this crap up. How do I teach Chat GPT every feature of a random SaaS app?

Write documentation and don't block crawlers.

Stop promoting software that lies to people

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#702

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…

I spend noticeably less time on youtube than I used to because they keep shoving shorts in my face. I'm a premium subscriber, I click "fewer shorts," nothing changes. Maybe I should be thankful?

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube only still "works" because of the cat and mouse ad blocker game. I don't know how but my new ad blocker seems to fast forward through all the ads. For a little while YouTube had them licked and I was watching 10 to 20 second ads all the time so temporarily gave up on YouTube until the ad blockers caught up again. Now YouTube is still functionally broken on TVs and mobile phones but works fine on a desktop com…

Why not just pay for premium?

Pay for a global monopoly that has always subsided its operation with infinite money from a near ad and search monopoly and private equity? Yeah, I will keep my uBlock Origin active, no thanks.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#704

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…

Has there ever been an option to pay google $20/month for a better / add-free search?

The current subscription situation for LLM stuff actually makes me hopeful.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, when it launched the point of paying for cable instead of getting TV for free via broadcast was no ads Now cable has ads and costs a fortune; I didn't know anyone who has it. I do still watch a little broadcast though, the price is right even if the programming isn't great. If there's nothing on I turn it off and look at my phone

> point of paying for cable instead of getting TV for free via broadcast was no ads No, the point of paying for cable was to get more TV. Most cable stations have always had ads. You're probably thinking of HBO, which is a tiny subset of overall cable output.

The original point of cable was Community Antenna TV, where you'd get a much better quality signal (and often even additional out-of-market but nearby channels). Then broadcasters decided to go into specifically seeking nationwide coverage (Ted Turner was a pioneer in this area). They also decided, due to the sports leagues, that cable should only deliver local stations in the same market as your location through blackouts (through my childhood I went from getting three ABC affiliates and two CBS affiliates, to one of each). It became unprofitable to manage blacking out the out-of-market station any time they were both running network or sports programming, so the out-of-market stations were generally removed (I also wouldn't be surprised if negotiations for retransmission consent included terms preventing carriage of out-of-market stations).

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#706
post #702

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…

I spend noticeably less time on youtube than I used to because they keep shoving shorts in my face. I'm a premium subscriber, I click "fewer shorts," nothing changes. Maybe I should be thankful?

I recently quit YT premium after decades of having it, and now I actually (weirdly) feel good when I see ads bc it's a reminder that I'm not giving Googletube 20$/month

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#707

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…

It will just be different. No profit train lasts forever. Google is about to be made utterly irrelevant after 20+ years or so as a company. And they were the best.

If you still have a connection to your readers (e.g. email) you can still reach them. If they've formed a community, even better. If not, its a good time to work on that.

Google doesn't really have that. I have zero sense of community with Google. And that's why they'll die if something doesn't change.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#708
post #62
post #50

Conversely, it's useful to get an immediate answer sometimes 6 months ago, "what temp is pork safe at?" was a few clicks, long SEO optimised blog post answers and usually all in F not C ... despite Google knowing location ... I used it as an example at the time of 'how hard can this be?' First sentance of Google AI response right now: "Pork is safe to eat when cooked to an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C)"

As of a couple weeks ago it had a variety of unsafe food recommendations regarding sous vide, e.g. suggesting 129F for 4+ hours for venison backstrap. That works great some of the time but has a very real risk of bacterial infiltration (133F being similar in texture and much safer, or 2hr being a safer cook time if you want to stick to 129F). Trust it if you want I guess. Be cautious though.

A shorter cook time is safer? Do you sear it afterwards or something?

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#709

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 still young I almost spit out my drink.

I mean, compared to the music, TV, and film industries? YouTube is very young. Even many of today's media conglomerates have some sort of root that goes back 100 years or more.

Re: AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks

#710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 good work that people appreciate, I know I've helped a LOT of people over four decades. Simple content that can be conveyed in a few succinct lines of text (like how to uninstall Homeb…

I mean, then what happens when there isn't enough money in producing answers but technology continues to move forward? There isn't any more content for the AI to summarize to answer with...

Then we all start buying O'Reilly books again i guess, i use to have dozens.
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