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Google is replacing search results with only the AI (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 2 days ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

39 comments fedilink hide all child comments

replace the Web with slop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aji8lhaV3XM&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260520-google-replacing-search-results-with-only-the-ai - podcast

time: 9 min 04 sec

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[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 29 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Information-gathering agents are an evolution of Google Alerts. Beyond spotting changes, they can make sense of them, too.

… Links will become an afterthought with the coming changes to the Search results experience.

Web publishers should honestly just block googlebot at this point. Why should they provide credibility to whatever Google's stochastic parrot hallucinates if Google won't even give them any kickback?

So what do we search with instead of Google? There isn’t a lot of choice. There’s various flavours of Google or Bing.

Microsoft deprecated their Bing API back in August, instead telling people to use some Azure AI thing. DDG and the like weren't affected because they have contracts, but I can't imagine they'll be renewed.

[–] smeenz@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If sites start blocking googlebot en masse, then googlebot will just start ignoring robots.txt

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 1 points 1 hour ago

Then you can just block the user agent in nginx or whatever you use, like all the other AI scrapers who ignore robots.txt (*cough* Amazon)

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

Can they just put an EULA on the site and then sue Google for unauthorized access?

Not in the US of course, but in the EU or something

[–] Jiral@lemmy.org 0 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Until then Qwant and Mogee should have somewhat usable indeces on their own, at least for European users.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 11 points 2 days ago

Yikes! 😳😬

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think it's possible to allow google search bots but not Gemini bots?

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The point is that there's going to be no difference, soon Google search will be just another chatbot interface.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Guess I'll just have to use ddgo, then ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[–] flowerysong@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Unfortunately DuckDuckGo sucks ass at search, even compared to how much the Google search results have degraded over time. I use the no-AI version as my primary search engine, but I have to resort to using Google to find the thing I'm looking for about 1 in 5 times.

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago

DDG has been my main search engine for over a decade but it has degraded as it became basically a reseller of Bing results after Russia started the current phase of the Ukraine war and they stopped partnering with Yandex.