Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google changes its search box

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 961 posts

Re: Google changes its search box

#711

Post by vb-8448 »

al_borland wrote: post #410
vb-8448 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it cannot work this way, content creators make far more money from ads in the video itself compared to the one yt gives them. If it were for yt money alone basically we will still be in the 2010 yt: folks that doing it just for fun. The problem with all this AI/llm stuff is that end users doesn't even know your tiny site with a lot of useful information exists at all.

> The problem with all this AI/llm stuff is that end users doesn't even know your tiny site with a lot of useful information exists at all. This depends on implementation. I primarily use Kagi for any LLM stuff. I cites pretty much everything and links out to the source. I regularly use this for search. The normal search results may not have what I need, but a line in the AI results sounds better and I click through…

Maybe there are some exceptions, but my[0] behaviour changed a lot in the last 3 years:

- in the past Google was the entry point for everything, I was opening every single site at the top of my search and navigate through it. E.g.: if the site was a Reddit or HN post I was reading comments, following links, ecc

- today I'm using google 1 in 3 times and I mostly read the "AI Overview" section. The other 2 out of 3 I go directly into chatgtp, claude or gemini and rarely follow any links.

[0] But I see the same pattern basically in all of my colleagues, friends and relatives.

Re: Google changes its search box

#712

Post by glandium »

skillina wrote: post #559
glandium wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, I have the exact opposite problem, where Google likes to give me results in the configured main language even when I do queries in another and actually want results in the other language.

I’ve found it quite unsettling to be served foreign language videos on YouTube automatically dubbed over by Google into English. Just mixed in with the search results.

It's quite unsettling to be served English AI-dubbed videos randomly on Youtube, where the original is another language you normally default to (Japanese) and it's happy to use in most cases. And then you go to the settings for the video to go back to the original and it tells you it is... Chinese (and no, it's really Japanese).

Re: Google changes its search box

#713

Post by rpigab »

AI in search is worthless to me because of how many SEO AI slop spamsites are created daily, pretending to be regular newssites and regurgitating random crap that's always the first result when you search for specific things, like a combination of two popular search terms. This when fed into another AI adds a slayer of slop, so if you don't check the source, you can't know for sure.

Re: Google changes its search box

#714

Post by wodenokoto »

mort96 wrote: post #645
binkHN wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I am searching for something, I usually want to find primary sources. And therein lies the rub; for years now Google's search results have returned useless SEO garbage. For now, it definitely seems like an LLM answer is better than what was being returned and I guess this is the reason why Google ripped it out.

An LLM answer is not "better", it's in a completely different category. LLM answers can be useful , for topics where you can easily verify a fact (i.e if you ask for a Linux command and it gives you one, you can run it and see if it did what you wanted), or for topics which are more opinion than pure fact ("list some trade-offs between decision A and decision B"). But when you want information that's provided by some…

> But you could still dig through it and find those primary sources. That is, in my opinion, the primary purpose of a search engine.

And you are a small minority. People go to google to get answers, not to look for articles in order to look for answers in the articles.

Re: Google changes its search box

#715

Post by peter_retief »

I saw this and decided it would be great for tracking my vegetable patch,

when i planted seeds,

when are they expected to germinate

when do i need to water

when will I get to harvest

Watering would be based on weather conditions

Did i misunderstand the concept?

Re: Google changes its search box

#717

Post by ymolodtsov »

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?

Depends on what you're trying to do. Sell ads over your content? Probably not great. Sell goods? Still good for you. Become influential and spread ideas? Good for you.

It's the news media that will suffer the most.

Re: Google changes its search box

#718

Post by eithed »

jcattle wrote: post #694
monkpit wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1, Google serves info directly and consumers rejoice Step 2, Google extinguishes the web and nobody has a reason to publish content, consumers lament but are trapped, Google has created a platform to serve content instead of links Step 3 (or maybe 2a), Google is now monetizing their content machine Step 4, Google offers people a way to contribute to the content machine, make some $$ per N views, whatever. People…

I mean this is already (kind of) the case for video. There's no real mainstream way outside of youtube to make meaningful money with free video content. But yes, interesting thought which does kind of make sense. The marketplace-ification of the textual web.

With google search you don't get money for creating content as people rely on summary provided by the search.

Imagine people would go to youtube and watch previews of your videos solely; or the preview is your video, but condensed and given preferential treatment.

Re: Google changes its search box

#719

Post by saddist0 »

ymolodtsov wrote: post #717
ekidd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Depends on what you're trying to do. Sell ads over your content? Probably not great. Sell goods? Still good for you. Become influential and spread ideas? Good for you. It's the news media that will suffer the most.

Honestly, a majority of news media are just AI generated content (echo chambers). I personally feel Dead Internet Theory is true and has arrived already.

Re: Google changes its search box

#720

Post by ymolodtsov »

saddist0 wrote: post #719
ymolodtsov wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you're trying to do. Sell ads over your content? Probably not great. Sell goods? Still good for you. Become influential and spread ideas? Good for you. It's the news media that will suffer the most.

Honestly, a majority of news media are just AI generated content (echo chambers). I personally feel Dead Internet Theory is true and has arrived already.

It's like saying that most YouTube videos are bad. Sure, but there's a power law and most people consume the top content.
Post reply on HN