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Is Google losing significant web traffic to ChatGPT and others? I don't understand why else they'd test a product like this so widely.
by _air 2y ago
Is Google losing significant web traffic to ChatGPT and others? I don't understand why else they'd test a product like this so widely.
- pylua 2y agoI don’t know, but I am curious as how they are going to monetize it.
- rovr138 2y agoI'm curious how websites will stay in business once it's kinda good or people just start thinking it's true
- pylua 2y agoSeems like eventually, it would become the dominant predator, and deplete its food supply?
- carlosjobim 2y agoYou will pay Google to insert your ads into AI generated answers. No need for the hassle of creating a website anymore. What a relief for businesses!
- pylua 2y agoThat’s an interesting thought. Just order your fast food through Gemini, or schedule your car repair or book a hotel directly through gemini without going to a different website. I haven’t even considered that.
- rovr138 2y agoI swear I saw a screenshot of Microsoft’s with ads inline. I couldn’t find it after.
- balder1991 2y agoMaybe the websites remaining will be genuinely interesting texts that you’d actually want to read instead of just query for an answer.
- rovr138 2y agoSure, things like blogs. But if you need info for a movie or something, where will the data come from? Back to newspapers?
- balder1991 2y agoI would imagine Google doing something like: “just use this service to keep your information up to date and you’ll get monetized automatically based on users querying your data”.
- rovr138 2y agoRight now they have us convinced to optimize how we give them data for them to be able to parse it (schema.org, etc). So we give them the data, optimize it for them ingesting it, then we loose traffic because people get the data on the search page. We'll probably have to pay them to give them the data...
- balder1991 2y agoYeah, but thinking about it now, this happens because Google has a monopoly on search and they can afford to dictate the rules. I think that with more companies competing with AI the field is a bit more even, and Google would be the one needing this kind of “advantage”.
- seattle_spring 2y agoI honestly wonder if there's eventually going to be "sponsored" answers. I shudder to even think of it, but it seems naive to think we are not going in that direction.
- cdme 2y agoAds
- IAmNotACellist 2y agoIf they had any sense at all (questionable) they would be absolutely pants-shittingly terrified that their prized product has been completely undercut by an upstart in a matter of months, and that Microsoft has a deep partnership with that competitor. I'd think even the leadership at Google can figure out that ChatGPT eats their lunch in terms of cutting through the SEO bullshit and giving actual information. If they were even approaching baseline-clever, they'd realize that they've caused people to be so pissed at the declining quality of their search for years and that they'll happily jump ship.
- mike_d 2y agoGoogle was always better than Yahoo/Bing at dealing with webspam (whether Google can continue to beat current webspam is a different debate). Bing is happily traning on the things they don't know are bad results. Garbage in garbage out. The only competition Google needs to worry about is Google's leadership. Once Cloud brought in TK and they started actively recruiting from Microsoft and Oracle it was like an infection of stupid they haven't been able to fight.
- shooker435 2y agoNot sure if it's strictly the recruiting pool that made things break down, but I see it more as a result of COVID/WFH + the recruiting pool. Google's strong in-office culture once helped new joiners learn the culture and challenge others in a respectful way - now it's a political minefield. Remote work is great, but it probably accelerated Google's culture decline. If you've been there a while, you'll notice the wild difference in employee attitudes when comparing pre-2019 employees to post 2020 employees.
- mike_d 2y ago> Remote work is great, but it probably accelerated Google's culture decline. Absolutely agree. A lot of the top talent bailed when they started demanding return to office. Google played the "if you don't X we will fire you" with a bunch of L7+ that ... surprise, could easily get jobs elsewhere or had enough GSUs to flat out retire.
- AlienRobot 2y agoWhat are you going to do? Switch to Bing? Good luck, Bing puts Chat GPT on top of their results! Because what are you going to do? Switch to Brave Search? To Kagi? Well, guess who else is trying to put AI into their search engines!
- al_borland 2y agoI think they are terrified of GenAI eliminating people's desire to do traditional web searches. It's basically the quick answers Google has been offering for years, but much more in depth and complete (if correct). My dad has been talking a lot about how he wants to start using ChatGPT more instead of Google, and he thinks is going to make his life much better.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- __loam 2y agoIt's like a percent. For Google I guess that's significant.
- rsynnott 2y agoI would assume to appease the markets, whose limited collective wisdom is currently zeroing in on AI. Google has been known to overreact before; remember Google+, at the height of the social media boom?