[wvenable]

It's a catch-22. Without google crawling your site, you don't get any new traffic. But with google crawling your site, you also might not get any traffic.

AI summarization has already causes issues for sites like rtings where people are no longer visiting the site but still making use of the data presented there. Leading to rtings not getting enough traffic to continue to post their data.

It is an existential crisis for websites and when they go away it'll be an existential crisis for AI.

[kxrm]

> Without google crawling your site, you don't get any new traffic. But with google crawling your site, you also might not get any traffic.

I may be strange and unusual, but I just have never cared about my Google ranking. I know this makes me out of the ordinary among site owners but I have been humming along fine.

This certainly will disrupt traffic but for some of my sites I honestly think this is a good thing. I want you to want to be there, not just stumble upon my site because you happen to hit the right search keyword. Plus if it gets bad, this does create a new opportunity for others with cross linking and search.

[prinny_]

Only issue is what happens when the company that owns the search and has a dominant share of the browser market flags your site with the good old "warning: potential risk ahead" when people try to reach it directly? And buries the "I know the risk let me through" deep in the browser settings. Advocate for different browsers? Google is pushing web attestation in one form or the other. I wish the future would look bleak, because right now it's looking blue, red, yellow and green and it's worse.

[kxrm]

> Only issue is what happens when the company that owns the search and has a dominant share of the browser market flags your site with the good old "warning: potential risk ahead" when people try to reach it directly?

My target market is more technical then that so likely, nothing would change for me. Again, I recognize the impact of Google's dominance for some, but if the "attestation" isn't helpful and only hinders using services that people have come to rely on, there will be push back.

I also have been advocating for years for everyone in my circle to avoid using Chrome. A homogenized browser market is a risk, and Chrome is the new IE. I hope you are also a part of the effort to advocate for browser diversity.

[tardedmeme]

You could lose your domain name: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47151233

[account42]

Don't forget that other browsers also just use googles web good boy list and if you report false positives point you towards google and cover their ears.

[1718627440]

> flags your site with the good old "warning: potential risk ahead"

They are already training people to click these away.

[carlosjobim]

> I have been humming along fine.

Do you depend on site visitors for making a living? That's what this is about.

[kxrm]

Yes! However most of my users were established through my network, not search.

I know that sites relying on ad income will and are being hurt tremendously by this effort on Google's part. However, if you are in the startup space and make money on services you offer, search should be one of several strategies you are deploying for user growth.

[vasco]

This is like saying people should just win the lottery or something. Your conditions are extremely niche

[chadgpt3]

> I may be strange and unusual, but I just have never cared about my Google ranking.

But that's why you're a nobody instead of a million dollar startup founder. You didn't play the game, so, you lost. I lost too.

[monkpit]

Step 1, Google serves info directly and consumers rejoice

Step 2, Google extinguishes the web and nobody has a reason to publish content, consumers lament but are trapped, Google has created a platform to serve content instead of links

Step 3 (or maybe 2a), Google is now monetizing their content machine

Step 4, Google offers people a way to contribute to the content machine, make some $$ per N views, whatever. People create content within the ecosystem

Step 5, Google is now the internet, more content is created overall, quality is lower overall perhaps, algorithmic echo chambers flourish even more than today, old heads on HN lament, everyone else just goes on living

[camillomiller]

If so, I can only see a silent Laotian Buddhist monastery in my future. Until Larry Page buys it out, of course.

[pferde]

Haven't they tried doing Step 4 already? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol

[jcattle]

I mean this is already (kind of) the case for video.

There's no real mainstream way outside of youtube to make meaningful money with free video content.

But yes, interesting thought which does kind of make sense. The marketplace-ification of the textual web.

[account42]

Since "making money with free content" essentially means manipulating your users into spending more money elsewhere from which you then get some indirect kickbacks, I don't think we need to lament there being fewer opportunities for that particular business model. That's not to say that video centralization doesn't have other actually bad effects.

[eithed]

With google search you don't get money for creating content as people rely on summary provided by the search.

Imagine people would go to youtube and watch previews of your videos solely; or the preview is your video, but condensed and given preferential treatment.

[jcattle]

> With google search you don't get money for creating content as people rely on summary provided by the search.

I'm aware. And I'm curious how that will play out. Because same as with Youtube, historically Google Search gave the means and the discoverability to monetize producing valuable free content.

Youtube is directly dependent on people producing free content. If Youtube wouldn't pay its creators as well as it does, it would simply die.

Same with Google Search. Good content and good SEO gives the means for websites with free content to survive. Google usually takes a cut on ad placement on those pages with AdSense.

If Google Search now doesn't pay content creators as well as it used to, what will happen to free content on the web? It's bad for Google and it's bad for the creators.

We will see.

[larodi]

how about Tiktok - seems quite meaningfully getting money to people. Of course with short-format video, but still video, right?

[jcattle]

As far as I know, Tiktok pays significantly less than Youtube. But yes, TikTok is a thing, as well as Twitch.

Still, it's all very centralized platforms, which historically isn't the case for all the monetized free content you usually get from google search (reviews, recipes, travel guides, converter sites etc. etc.)

[pelasaco]

> AI summarization has already causes issues for sites like rtings

Isn't Stack Exchange the emblematic case?

[tardedmeme]

Stack Exchange committed suicide by closing all the questions. It was already in a steep decline before LLMs, after it got bought by private equity and did things like firing the moderators.

[WarmWash]

> Leading to rtings not getting enough traffic to continue to post their data.

And here I thought denying ad revenue to websites was the morally superior way to navigate the web...

[kid_cubi]

Related but not related: I wonder if, on a YT video, clicking on "Ask AI" and generate a summary of the video counts as seeing the video in its entirety.

[monooso]

That's some catch, that catch-22.

[BubbleRings]

I see everything twice!

[Boxxed]

It's the best there is.

[elevation]

> Without google crawling your site, you don't get any new traffic

What about the stories of marketing managers who learned months after the fact that their credit card had expired and their google ad spend had ceased with no affect on traffic? Google isn't always an effective promotional vehicle.

[maccard]

What stories are they?

[elevation]

There were a couple similar stories in a previous HN article/discussion that I would have bookmarked had I anticipated this discussion.

[loloquwowndueo]

Sounds like a pretty ineffective manager: wasn’t buying the correct ad placement in the first place, used a personal card to sign up for an ostensibly corporate service, didn’t keep track of expiration dates for the card, and was also ignoring email notifications from Google about the expired card. Let me know if I’m missing any other reasons why this manager should be fired instantly.

[elictronic]

Most large corporations have company credit cards. The user is likely referring to his card being the company card.

[loloquwowndueo]

Nah. Pretty sure he was using a personal card - corporate finance dept would likely better track where each card is being used and their expiration dates to avoid this happening. Also this better tracks with the rest of his sloppy behavior.

[esseph]

> corporate finance dept would likely better track where each card is being used and their expiration dates to avoid this happening

I have seen this happen first hand at a Fortune 100. They didn't track shit.

[vntok]

Well in addition to what you wrote, the marketing manager ALSO wasn't tracking any ad-related marketing performance indicator (CTR, CR, etc.) in any measurable way for very long periods of time... or they would have caught it almost immediately ("wow ad spend, CTR and CR have all suddenly gone down to 0/0% and have been staying there for days on all our campaigns! What's up with that?").

[seb1204]

Could be a smaller company.