It’s not like they were that good after years of SEO tricks and paid positioning. But I feel like Google will react to this if and only if they identify that people stop using Google because it stops giving relevant results (which I guess it’s still the case).
And to the question: “How would they know that a page is written by an AI?”, well they invented both the search algorithm and the LLM technology so will figure it out.
I’m more of the opinion that it’s easy to blame AI, but it’s more to do with SEO-targeted techniques. I’ve seen Google results getting worse for me over the years, whether it’s just junk information or also buried in “sponsored” content.
I’m finding Kagi to be pretty refreshing in that regard.
That being said, AI-generated websites being kicked out as legitimate results is an interesting problem set that all search engines will have to tackle.
I’ve been using Kagi search as a full-time replacement for Google for a few months. To my amazement, I like it enough to have become a paid subscriber.
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Kagi organic results are (for me) better than Google’s (This is what I find most surprising)
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Google image search and News search are still superior to kagi (Again, completely subjective)
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I like Kagi’s additional features, especially the ability to downrank low-quality domains
Same here – I pay them now. Not something I thought I would do – pay for a search engine. But I get good, clean results that don’t track me across a million websites. It’s worth it for me, no question.
This.
It’s where the incentives all are. In case you missed it:
What an interesting article, I had not seen it before.
The Verge has many beautiful and engaging feature articles, but this is one of the best. It does a fabulous job of semi-interactively demonstrating how indie websites must deform themselves to get Google’s clicks.
I don’t really feel this is a new problem, as others have remarked on here. SEO had already severely devalued Google Search - now the problem is just getting more pronounced.
I’ve not used Google Search for years and have no intention of going back. Other search engines are better (I still use DuckDuckGo for most things nowadays, but when I’m after web reviews, interesting articles, examples of how people are doing things, I use Marginalia, which specifically only searches non-commercial content and usually turns up interesting results.
Pair the above article with The Verge’s article last year, “What happens when Google Search doesn’t have the answer?”. Google’s market value was predicated on its search function, which may largely become obsolete as AI starts to furnish people with the answers they want. What happens next?
Enter anything with potential purchase intent and you’re awash in a near infinite scroll of the new 8-pack of image/name/price/rating/buy-link blocks. It’s quite terrible.
Interspersed will be a “Discussions and forums” block of Reddit and Quora links and even the few high authority results, and they are very few, all have thumbnail images to the right and a few of those even have ratings and buy links. The ol’ trick of “best X” or “X reviews” proves only marginally better.
After the last few months of updates, Google has unquestionably gotten worse from a user perspective and the same is true for quite a lot of publishers.
I’d say it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but I don’t have a lot of confidence it will get better. At least now we can keep looking and scrolling, imagine having only the crap parts served up to you via GPT/Bard.
I think that’s the internet though, not the search engines themselves. 95% of the internet is just trying to sell you stuff. If it’s not the content itself making a pitch, it’s surrounded by obnoxious ads and popups. Sites I generally like are a nightmare to visit without a blocker.
The internet just isn’t as good as it was 20 years ago. Everything is overly commercialized.
On that one, I’ll have to respectfully disagree. The internet in 2004 vs today…I’ll take today any day of the week. For me, I have way more web services, information, resources available vs back then. I don’t long for 2-decade-old web technology.
Technology is better, the content isn’t. Most of it is click bait. You can’t trust internet reviews, everything is an ad. There are exceptions, especially if you pay money, but when I do a Google search, I often don’t get what I was really looking for. Not because of Google, it’s because the sites are just going for clicks over real info. I often end up reading Reddit posts (and Reddit is cashing in and making itself worse) on a subject because I can’t find anything from the mainstream web.
For example I have high cholesterol so have been doing research. You have chiropractors on YouTube giving advice, tons of sites promoting their diet book or pill, and a bunch of vague government guidance sites. Sifting through the garbage is tiring.
I mean this thread is based on a click bait article even. 
I mean this thread is based on a clickbait article even
That begs the question, “What is a clickbait title?" I did not consider the article that started this thread to be clickbait. I certainly do not want to be guilty of propagating clickbait.
Here is the dictionary definition: “something (such as a headline) designed to make readers want to click on a hyperlink especially when the link leads to content of dubious value or interest [Emphasis added.].”
I don’t think that article was of dubious value, at least, I certainly hope not. 
I would say it is click bait because its title is an exaggeration of the truth to get people to click it.
I’m not arguing the point; that may be a valid one, but isn’t that a matter of interpretation in this case?
Now, this article probably qualifies as clickbait.
Eh, still not sure I agree. I think I agree that *good content is harder to find and takes smarter searching and, perhaps, different search tools. But the good content is still out there, even if sometimes that good content is within a community, whether it’s a subreddit or a custom community.