[em-bee]

That’s an LLM generated website if I’ve ever seen one

the explanation for that is here https://youtu.be/II2QF9JwtLc

basically louis found that not using AI to design his website drastically reduced the hits he would get from google.

[c-hendricks]

Wait, why would the method in which the HTML that Google indexes was generated matter?

(I get that web vitals might be taken into account, but you don't need a slop generator to make a static page)

[overgard]

From what I gathered from (part of) the video, it's not about the HTML, it's the copy. Basically Google is accidentally/intentionally optimizing for copy that sounds like it came from an LLM or a LinkedIn lunatics post.

I'm skeptical but I don't have time to watch the entire video so I don't want to cast an initial judgement on if he's correct or if it just has to do with his specific copy.

[em-bee]

i think you got the gist of it. the whole video doesn't really add any evidence as to how he came to that conclusion, it's mostly about why it's bad and how he feels about it.

[skeledrew]

It's not about the HTML. It's about the wording of the content. The more he had AI reword things, the better his ranking became.

[em-bee]

google search evaluates based on their content and how they look. apparently, according to louis, AI generated websites get a higher score.

[skeledrew]

Makes sense, since AI is also doing the ranking.

[andhug]

It’s still AI slop, even if your favorite youtuber built it.

[stronglikedan]

and still necessary, regardless of who built it

[em-bee]

yes, but that is not the problem here. the problem is that google search favors AI slop that makes this the preferred method of webdesign.

there is a huge difference between creating AI slop because i am lazy (which i think most people doing that are) and creating AI slop because otherwise google gives your website a bad rating.

now you and i may not care about google ratings, but many other people do, and the end result will be that all websites that want good ratings will end up being AI slop.

somehow we need to send google a message to stop that.

[nathanmills]

> somehow we need to send google a message to stop that.

...

[Aurornis]

The Google excuse doesn’t even hold water when you consider that the content of the website is so bad that it’s not even going to register for the relevant search terms. It’s just empty AI slop copy.

What are they even trying to rank for? It doesn’t make sense.

[queenkjuul]

That doesn't excuse the fake careers page

[em-bee]

i think it does. you have to think through the development process here. if we start with the promise that an AI generated site gets more hits, then you'd want to change as little as possible from what the AI generates by hand. yes it's dumb, but the whole premise of generating a website with AI is dumb to begin with.

i'd say that when louis discovered that AI websites work better, it broke him in that regard. the choice is now creating a website that i own, as in "this is mine, i made this". or a website that works with google. but i'd want to distance myself from that website as far as possible. "i didn't make this myself, i needed this for google. i don't want to touch it"

[starkeeper]

It's not fake? Why do you think it is fake?

[pc86]

Because there's no jobs? No apply button? Nothing actually there except a few lines of text?

[allset_]

Maybe they don't have any openings at this time.