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Surprising no one, new research says AI Overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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As intended.
First they're going to collapse the ad model by eliminating most clicks.
Then they're going to put all of the information they've been scraping from the now-bankrupt websites behind paywalls.
Joke's on them, I've already been working on that for decades. *pats ublock* This baby can bankrupt so many websites and I always hoped it could collapse the ad model completely.
In all seriousness, it's becoming increasingly clear that we're eventually going to have to build a new, free internet out of the wreckage of this one once the corporations are done with it. Technically it's already there, nascent but ever so slowly growing and taking root, hiding in plain sight. Like the so-called dark web of tor, it already exists in parallel to the existing structures of the internet. Call it the deep web, the indie web, nostalgia web, unsearchable web, I've heard countless terms and most of them aren't terribly accurate, but the web doesn't need ads and google search to exist, it never did. It just needs humans, which despite the best efforts of big tech many of us still are, communicating directly with one another and documenting our billions of lifetimes of diverse collective experiences and knowledge.
We are the wealth of information in the internet. Corporations don't own it. We are it.
Very much yes.
I have this great visual image of the corporate web, marked by neon signs and billboards and holographic ads, populated entirely by bots talking to each other while the humans sneak away, giggling and shushing each other.
I see your ublock and raise you Pihole.
The internet has always had ads, some of the most obnoxious were those mid to late 90s banner ads with sound. I’ll never forget loading a random page and my speakers screaming: Helllllloooooooooo.
I genuinely forgot about the ads with sound.
I don't miss them.
Porque no los dos?
I've been wondering how we can build a new underground net that is just the internet of 2002, but with more bandwidth. Somewhere normies can't access easily and with a bad ui so they don't want to.
Kagi has a “small web” filter that brings this back to an extent.
Marginalia.nu does too with similar additonal filters like Tildeverse and Forums.
Marginalia should be one of the most important things to preserve, in a similar importance to Wikipedia.
I2P
Yes. The secret to telling what a search engine wants you to do is whatever is on top of the search results.
You and I might scour the results to find the exact best results, but most people simply look at the very first thing they're presented with and call it a day.
When I saw all of the search engines putting AI answers first, I knew they were intentionally trying to stop people from clicking through.
I'm not sure I fully understand the play here. Like, what's the grand vision? Fewer click-throughs == less ad impressions, no? They just want you to see the AdWords ads only? I'm not sure it's a fully-baked idea. I'm not convinced they can really create a moat around all information on the web
Would welcome any additional insights
It's to keep you on Google as long as possible. Google doesn't care about ad impressions off-site. Look at it this way:
You search for something and AI surfaces full answers to you at the top. Now, Google can "alter the deal" in the near-future where "sponsored AI results" come into play and are incorporated into The Answer. THAT is the gold mine. Right now (and forever) it's been about being on the first page of results and now it's about being the first result "above the fold" so people don't even need to scroll. This is going to change to be the "AI answer" so your website / product / service is mixed into the answer. Pay-for-play just like everything else.
This method will rapidly train users to just search, view AI results, then click through those paid results or move onto something else. Those AI incporated impressions will make Google money and the possible click-through from the AI answer will yield more money.
Companies are already working to optimize so AIs will recommend their products and services when people ask things like "I'm going on vacation to the mountains for a week. What gear would you recommend?"
Makes sense, thanks. I guess I just wasn't cynical enough to see it right away
Google probably wants to keep you on google.com, where they have ads. By doing the AI stuff, you never click through to someone else's page. They get 100% of the interactions and can sell all the clicks.
It's monopoly stuff. They should be stopped, with whatever box of liberty is needed.
Why would they do that, when they can charge advertisers to bias the LLM? How much do you think Adidas would pay to have their products advantages mixed into any response about sports gear, undetectable?
CC: @mesamunefire@piefed.social