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Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

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Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#91

Post by tempodox »

spudlyo wrote: post #6
StLCylone wrote: post #2

AI has successfully scraped enough of their content so that they are no longer needed. Thanks for creating the content, now someone else will make money with it.

Franky, good riddance. The websites that had SEO optimized their way to the top of Google's search results for queries like "how to change DNS settings", "best free VPN", or "best wireless earbuds under $300" were generally terrible, and I can't say I'm sad that that creating that kind of "content" is no longer economically viable. There were large categories of information had become extremely difficult to search fo…

Except when they just hallucinate an answer that is plainly wrong.

Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#92

Post by rurp »

NoLinkToMe wrote: post #69

Three things are probably true: 1. in the short term this development is great for users. LLMs trained for free on a universe of high-quality human stolen content, and returns relevant parts of it to resolve specific customer questions, without ads, an operation funded by VC. 2. with LLMs redirecting search from knowledge producers (webpages) to knowledge aggregators (LLMs) the incentive to create knowledge is gone,…

Agreed on all three points, but I think this is pretty obviously terrible in the long run. The open internet was one of the greatest common goods in human history. That ecosystem is quickly being exploited to death by a handful of tech companies. Those companies are generating a lot of revenue in the short term, and the rest of humanity is losing a great deal.

I can't even begin to count how many times I've found interesting and useful information from an old forum/article/guide that was supported by some ads or simply an avenue to engage with people. Those incentives are now gone.

Tech companies have no ethics and their leaders think it's in their interest to continue the exploitation, so that's what is going to happen. The only effective way to prevent a tragedy of the commons situation on this scale is major government action and there is zero political will for that at this time.

In the long run there will be some sort of reaction, maybe site curation will make a comeback. A few big name sites will probably resist the slop and survive as an institution. But the internet many of us know and love is being pummeled to death before our eyes.

Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#94

Post by righthand »

GJim wrote: post #83
sct202 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can shape the AI responses for some niche topics relatively easily even on accident. I recently saw 2 people arguing on a forum on a very niche industry topic and one of them started to use Gemini as a source to argue and Gemini was already referencing their thread as a source. I'm imagining people could start doing that on purpose with their own astroturfed blogs and public social media accounts.

> one of them started to use Gemini as a source We need a variant of Godwins law to reflect (and prevent) the use of AI being used in internet squabbles.

Cut communication and notify them you dont like speaking with their llm and expected the conversation to be between the two people. Discount their credibility.

Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#95

Post by rurp »

spudlyo wrote: post #6
StLCylone wrote: post #2

AI has successfully scraped enough of their content so that they are no longer needed. Thanks for creating the content, now someone else will make money with it.

Franky, good riddance. The websites that had SEO optimized their way to the top of Google's search results for queries like "how to change DNS settings", "best free VPN", or "best wireless earbuds under $300" were generally terrible, and I can't say I'm sad that that creating that kind of "content" is no longer economically viable. There were large categories of information had become extremely difficult to search fo…

What do you think is going to happen to LLM content after it has replaced the rest of the internet? It sure as hell isn't going to stay relatively unbiased and ad-free. The degradation of Google Search is probably an optimistic comparison.

Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#96

Post by pocksuppet »

structural wrote: post #88
hypeatei wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't those ads always there, though? The most obvious change is that a little AI popup appears on Google search providing a brief (even if hallucinated) overview of what the user queried. Unrelated, but I wouldn't expect this take on HN where I assumed everyone knew what an ad-blocker was.

Mobile users (or other locked down devices where adblockers are forbidden) are still a decent chunk of traffic. It's much easier to just read the overview and not click through to the ad infestation, or even use a chatbot of choice as the search engine instead of going to Google, because "websites is how you get spammed with ads".

> Mobile users (or other locked down devices where adblockers are forbidden)

Just say Apple. They're still allowed on Android, although I don't think you can get them from the Play Store.

Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#97

Post by pocksuppet »

flakeoil wrote: post #33
eggbrain wrote: post #29

Many of today's news websites (tech or otherwise) cashed in their goodwill / reputation / page rank to sell ads. The first shoe dropped when news websites realized they weren't generating content fast enough. Hard, in depth journalism takes time, but when people want to know something that happened _today_, they don't want to wait a week for all the facts to come out, and so the major websites started losing traffic…

> you can get the answers you want, described to you exactly how you'd like to hear it I thought we wanted the truth.

Stated and revealed preferences

Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#98

Post by ChrisArchitect »

It's not entirely the bad UX/ad-riddled layouts, it's the content. Other than Verge and Wired maybe, all of the listed publications are mostly putting out late, regurgitated stories. They're not on the ball, and so have dropped it. We're more likely to get a breaking tech story out of CNBC, Reuters or NYT and go from there. And that's not even getting into Verge and Wired's paywalls or syndication over to outrage-farm 404 media in the case of the latter. And where's Ars in all this? (which suffers from some of the same problems/quality/timing)

Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#99

Post by pocksuppet »

troyvit wrote: post #51
1shooner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be your suggestion for monetization without ads or subscription? Or are you thinking some type of privacy-respecting ad system? Because those have definitely been tried.

Subscription used to work. They can work again, even better than before now that we have the facility for micro-transactions. A micro-transactional framework would have the added benefit of making it expensive for scrapers to steal content. This is hard for me, an "information wants to be free" kinda guy, to espouse. But there are softer ways to do it, such as how The Guardian does it, or how public media does it.

This reminds me that The Onion is still doing print subscriptions, and they might be better value than most of real newspapers...

Re: Most-read tech publications have lost over half their Google traffic since 2024

#100

Post by ctoth »

PacificSpecific wrote: post #19
andy81 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've all tried to ask the LLM about something outside of its training data by now. In that situation, they give the (wrong) answer that sounds the most plausible.

That's definitely been my experience. I work with a lot of weird code bases that have never been public facing and AI has horrible responses for that stuff. As soon as I tried to make a todomvc it started working great but I wonder how much value that really brings to the table. It's great for me though. I can finally make a todomvc tailored to my specific needs.

I'm not sure what sorts of weird codebases you're working with but I recently saw Claude programming well on a Lambda MOO -- weirder than that?
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