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Google changes its search box

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Re: Google changes its search box

#811

Post by einpoklum »

SoftTalker wrote: post #138
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...

The web as we know it is over. Websites will die on the vine if LLMs intermediate all the content. The "website" of the future will be an API optimized for LLM crawlers, serving plain-text content that no end-user will ever view directly. The SEO game will change to LLMAO.

No, they will not. And that's because:

* A large fraction of people are realizing that some search engines are soft-censoring, already; * Another fraction of people will not accept AI agent slop as a replacement for website search; * Another fraction of users will get annoyed/tired with not getting directed anywhere; * Another fraction of users does not rely on AI-focused/AI-exclusive search engine.

Between the lot of those, the non-Google-covered Internet has, and will, live on. Yes, with _less_ traffic - nto _no_ traffic.

Re: Google changes its search box

#812

Post by chadgpt3 »

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?

The opportunity to feed it false information?

Re: Google changes its search box

#814

Post by chadgpt3 »

ozim wrote: post #689
pflenker wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of years back I worked with a company which maintained specific data which was the main traffic driver on that page. Google approached them and wanted to pay for the rights to get the data and display it on top of the search results, a feature which was fairly new back then. This was an interesting dilemma because it was very clear that the money was way less than the loss in ad revenue due to traffic drop,…

Then we go and pay to Cloudeflare or other cloud providers you host sites with to prevent Google from scraping. Let the big guys fight it out. There is money in protecting the websites. If you host with OVH they are interested in you making money so you can pay them.

This won't work because Google just pays Cloudflare to enable scraping.

Re: Google changes its search box

#815

Post by einpoklum »

arionhardison wrote: post #218

I'm old enough to remember when "Google" was something that ended conversations. People — myself included — would literally say "Google it," the facts would be located, and that was that. Now that Google wants to be the conversation, I'm worried there will no longer be a bias-free source of information for the masses. This is all new, so I may be a bit hyperbolic, but the reason OpenAI introducing ads bothers me is t…

Google has been actively biasing their search results for commercial purposes for decades, and have for quite a while been censoring or soft-censoring results for political reasons. WSWS' Andrei Dimon wrote about this extensively back in 2017, and I believe it also made the mainstream press once or twice - but has been mostly glossed over.

Re: Google changes its search box

#816

Post by chadgpt3 »

kxrm wrote: post #212
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…

> 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. I may be strange and unusual, but I just have never cared about my Google ranking. I know this makes me out of the ordinary among site owners but I have been humming along fine. This certainly will disrupt traffic but for some of my sites I honestly think this is a good thing. I…

> I may be strange and unusual, but I just have never cared about my Google ranking.

But that's why you're a nobody instead of a million dollar startup founder. You didn't play the game, so, you lost. I lost too.

Re: Google changes its search box

#817

Post by gosub100 »

b112 wrote: post #780
Gareth321 wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. For what it's worth, I think Google's business model is in trouble. They're putting in heroic effort to stay relevant during this shift to AI search, but how does their advertising model work when people expect summarised and accurate information instead of scrolling pages of ads? The search space is actually not that unhealthy. There are competitors. They just lack the reach of Google. These competitor will…

Hanging my comment here, not blaming the parent poster, it's just relevant... All the "AI search" I've tried is far less relevant than a proper search, using search engines without it seems much faster and more relevant. Whenever I get AI search results, its summaries lack substance, are often just plain wrong, and so on. When I check, it's often usong the wrong aggregate data to return results. Search engines these…

Regarding a swiffer: it's a zero sum game. Where did the materials come from? The earth. Where did they return after use? The earth. The only thing changed was the energy used to create and transport them.

If conserving energy was important, none of these AI datacenters would be built, none of our items would be shipped across the planet from Asia. They would conserve energy and import raw materials only.

Re: Google changes its search box

#818

Post by account42 »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #287
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?

Maybe you want your ideas to spread? If your sites purpose is getting ad impressions then yea no point. But if your purpose is to spread ideas then it is still useful.

Google is not going to be spreading ideas that they don't approve of.

Re: Google changes its search box

#819

Post by Toutouxc »

RyanOD wrote: post #635
Groxx wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are this wrong about everything , but you don't usually notice it when using it to look for things you aren't an expert in. The default stance really does need to be "do not trust, verify" at all times . They can still be useful, e.g. they're significantly better at finding "I want a thing that does x but not y and it must be blue, or maybe two things that can be glued together to do that" than classic search. B…

How can you say they are wrong about "everything"? I built a retro game clone once and I used that project as a way to try out AI. While it wasn't perfect, it definitely wasn't wrong about everything. I'd go so far as to say it was probably correct (or damn close) 75% of the time. I see people on HN all the time saying AI is terrible, but that just isn't the experience I'm having. I'm willing to admit it may have som…

Your profile says you're a guitarist. Take the model and talk to it about guitars. Not like "what's a good Stratocaster clone", talk to it about materials, physics and playing techniques and see if it feels like a reliable source of information (or even a solid thinking buddy), or someone who read a lot about guitars but has actually never played one.

I know bits from non-IT fields like RC planes and quads, electric motors, aerodynamics, mountain biking, cars. I often use Claude (Opus 4.7 on Max sub atm) to brainstorm new ideas or refine my understanding of some phenomena, and almost without fail, I can get it to claim something ridiculously stupid or contradictory 5-10 messages in. I can usually catch it, because I don't venture far from what I'm already familiar with, and I also need explanations to be thorough and things to make total sense to me before I accept them, but not everyone is that pedantic.

Re: Google changes its search box

#820

Post by chadgpt3 »

try-working wrote: post #440
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?

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

Thanks for the optimistic view. We could use more of that. I can only hope it comes about...
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