AI is driving more searches
This is hilarious. People are searching more because they aren’t getting results they need from AI, which drives ad revenue so Google’s doing great!
Google search boss says AI isn’t killing search clicks
Submitted 3 weeks ago by Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/08/google-search-boss-says-ai-isnt-killing-search-clicks/
Comments
Dave@lemmy.nz 3 weeks ago
Cypher@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Search engines are so significantly worse than they were a decade ago. The golden age of accurate searches is over, now it’s all SEO piss and AI slop.
Dave@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
To give credit to the people trying to make good search, the internet is so much worse than it was a decade or two ago.
Over that time the ad driven internet has encouraged low quality, high volume websites full of articles designed around common search terms.
It started before AI, but now you can drum up an article in seconds it has got much worse.
frongt@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
SEO garbage has been around for much more than a decade. In fact, before Google got really good at search ranking, sites easily gamed the search engines.
decended_being@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
There are really two options, either
- Clicks on results have decreased because AI summaries are so good. Or
- AI summaries aren’t giving the answers people want so they’re clicking on results.
It’s good for Google to show that clicks are happening because that’s part of how they make their money, their clients need the clicks to survive. It’s good for Google to show that AI summaries are being used because it’s a product they’ve poured a lot of money into, that’s being sold to shareholders as a superintelligence.
Bubble is going to burst.
callouscomic@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Owner of product being sold says product is not bad.
phutatorius@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
TommySoda@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s not what the data said back in March. I highly doubt it’s gotten better.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I run sites for a major NGO for addiction recovery. We often ask people how they found us. More than half now say AI. We don’t have ads in our sites, but for people monetizing their sites this must be dramatic.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Google search boss says words and no numbers :333
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To computer, words are numbers
nadram@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Amount of Google searches I’ve made since implementation of AI results: zero
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 2 weeks ago
I’ve only used Google a couple of times, and by accident. The ebook reader I have seems hard coded to search Google when you ask it to search the web for a word in the book. I intensely dislike the AI slop. I do not want an AI summary of the Wikipedia article. Just take me to the wiki article you dunces!
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
People still use Google for search?
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Do people still use the most popular search engine for search? I get you’re trying to be factitious but it comes across as naff.
ragas@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I just tried to use google a few hours ago and it got me the same bad results as other search engines, only that it gave me a bunch of advertisements and AI slop first.
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It might be the most popular but it is utter crap and has been for a while. It has reached peak enshittification. You used to be able to say you absolutely wanted a term in the search or you didn’t want other terms. It ignores all of that now. Google stopped being about able to search years ago and is more about showing you the most relevant ad. I’m either DuckDuckGo or I self-host my own searxng. I’ve also tried using a locally hosted perplexica (running on my own local LLM) which uses searxng underneath the hood I think.
Btw: I’m a yank so I had to look up naff so I learned some cool new slang! Now I’ll admit I was being slightly flippant but serious in the fact that Google really sucks as a search engine now.
frongt@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
*facetious
ksigley@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
DuckDuckGo is way better.
SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Maybe I just am using it wrong, but DDG consistently gives me completely irrelevant results, while Google still gives me what I’m looking for about 70% of the time. Maybe I just need to learn the proper way to search with DDG but so far it’s been next to useless in finding me relevant info.
Deflated0ne@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So he’s lying. Good to know.
MyOpinion@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
I don’t believe this for a second.
Valmond@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I don’t believe this for half a second.
Sidhean@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I believed it for a couple seconds, but then I came to my senses.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh so Google is only killing people and not the Internet? What a relief. /s
What a bunch of BS.
AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Man who invented torture nexus claims torture nexus isn’t used for torture.
digger@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Are we counting Gemini interactions as search?
monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ding ding ding
If you make up a new metric then you can say there isn’t a problem.
DaddleDew@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Search clicks were dead already from 9 out of the top 10 results being AI generated SEO garbage that contains information that is blatantly false. AI just gives you that garbage erroneous info right there without having to click anything.
JiminaMann@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
As my country likes to put it “ownself check ownself”
Taleya@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Reading bing and ddg aggregate requests as clicks
3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 3 weeks ago
Hahahahahahahahahahaha…
But on a serious note I am starting to get questions asked how to avoid AI completely. Nuke Google seems to make people very angry!Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Avoiding Google is honestly the best choice to avoid AI. Duckduckgo has a toggle where you can switch off AI summaries and filter out most AI generated images in image search. I switched to DDG years ago and never looked back.
3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 3 weeks ago
indeed - run a searxng instance now and it is my default search engine. Includes google in the search but no AI and adds DDG and others. Works well enough
sirico@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Nice try Mr convinso
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I believe it, chiefly because I read the slop answer and then have to check 5 more pages to figure out if it’s spouting nonsense or not.
frongt@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I click the links to the source on the relevant part.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Company fails to realize people circumvent their shoehorned tool
TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Use searx
Kissaki@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
How does data show better experiences?
Sagan_Wept@lemmynsfw.com 2 weeks ago
Cloudflare is killing clicks
Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Riiight… Next headline: “Pusher claims that his drugs not the cause sleepless nights and bugs under the skin”
danekrae@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Fox promises hens will be safe at his daycare.