Changes in Google Search Affect Users and Websites

• Google's AI mode reduces the number of visits to sites
• Users click on traditional links 50% less often
• Websites suffer from reduced traffic due to the AI mode

This was reported by Engadget, ZDNet.

Changes in Google Search, related to new AI features, significantly impact user behavior and traffic to websites.

This year, Google introduced a new feature called AI Mode, which allows users to receive answers to questions in the form of a conversation, reducing the number of links to other pages. This innovation is already available in the UK, following a successful launch in the USA.

According to research from the Pew Research Center, users who receive AI summaries in search results click on traditional links 50% less often than those who do not see the summary. Only 1% of users click on the links provided in the AI summary.

These changes have caused concern among webmasters. They report significant reductions in traffic to their sites, primarily due to the new AI features, which, in their words, collect feedback. In fact, experts assert that such changes could lead to a decline in content quality on the Internet.

Google denies these claims, asserting that overall traffic has not decreased, and that the new AI features provide users with more opportunities for information exploration. However, experts believe that instability in traffic could lead to negative consequences for websites.

Users are also concerned that the AI summaries sometimes contain inaccurate information, which may complicate the search for reliable data. For example, in mid-2024, Google AI mistakenly recommended users to use a specific key for pizza.

Although Google does not provide options to disable the AI summary, some users are seeking alternative ways to bypass this feature, such as adding "-AI" to queries to obtain classic search results without summaries.

Tags: Technology/AI