Is Google Search Getting Worse? You’re Not Imagining Things!

Yes, somehow Google has already changed the world, hasn’t it? It’s one of those companies (also formally known as Alphabet) that is thought to be “too big to fail”. It certainly didn’t do everything right, made some strange product decisions, but overall, never faltered even a little.

How Google wants to revamp its search

At the end of November 2022, a company known as OpenAI, which had previously been known only among experts, released ChatGPT. We suspected that a real threat to Google Search might have entered the scene for the first time. However, Google has long since recovered from this shock, and with tools such as Gemini, NotebookLM, and Veo, the tech giant is now shaking up the AI world itself.

But let me stop you here for a moment. After all, I don’t just want to wax lyrical about Google search and its history; I want to address a real problem. What is this exact problem? For some time now, Google search has not only presented you with classic search results, but also the so-called AI Overview at the top, which ideally already provides you with the desired result. What advantage is that for you? You don’t have to work your way through the numerous results, but get the solution served on a silver platter. As I mentioned — ideally.

Sometimes, however, the AI gets it wrong and recommends that you eat gluten on your pizza, eat one stone a day, and similar absurdities. Yes, we’ve all seen AI hallucinating before. In the meantime, however, what artificial intelligence presents in summary is usually really good. If I want to know something, I can often find out precisely in the AI Overview and no longer have to visit the page from which the information originated.

Publishers are complaining to the EU — and rightly so?

However, this is precisely what is infuriating independent publishers now. According to a document obtained by Reuters, they have formed the “Independent Publishers Alliance” to complain to the EU Commission about Google and its methods. The publishers accuse Google of — once again — exploiting its supremacy in web search by incorporating content from media companies into AI responses without their permission. For many news providers, this means fewer clicks, fewer readers, and ultimately, lower advertising revenue.

The complaint, therefore, logically states that Google is misusing content from the internet with its AI Overviews and, therefore, is harming publishers in particular, noticeably and probably permanently. The group is, therefore, calling on the EU Commission to quickly intervene before the media market experiences irreparable damage.

Google itself, of course, takes a completely different view and explains: with AI-powered search, Google enables users to “… ask even more questions, creating new opportunities for content and business discovery”. At the same time, Google lets it slip that “billions of clicks in the search lead to the respective websites anyway”.

How Google is becoming a threat to the entire Internet

What kind of statement is that? The fact that billions of clicks are recorded is, at best, a protective claim that is not backed up by figures and that nobody can verify. Even if it were verified, it would have to be compared with previous click figures. Reports of media outlets lamenting massive drops in traffic have been piling up for a long time.

Of course, publishers haven’t just been complaining since today, and in the past, it wasn’t always Google that was to blame for poor figures. In this case, I also have a really bad feeling. Think about what will happen if this AI Overview works really well in the near future. Or even better: when Google introduces AI Mode, which was announced at Google I/O and has already been launched in the USA, is rolled out worldwide. This will not only give you a ChatGPT-like experience but also automated payment, virtual clothes fitting, and price comparisons.

Conclusion: Google, you’re ruining everything!

Think for a moment about what this means for the respective sites if it all takes place within Google’s AI window. You virtually try on new jeans on the Google page instead of going to the store. Agentic AI also lets you pay directly there. And yes, you can also marvel at our ‘Best Of’ smartphone list there without having to visit our site.

The result? Less traffic for a large number of pages and therefore less advertising revenue. The major sites will probably be able to hold their own and become even more dominant, while smaller alternatives will have to give up. For Google, this means the AI will also have a smaller pool of information to draw from. Of course, less diverse media means poorer AI overviews.

And what happens if these overviews or the results in the AI mode of the search are inevitably no longer as convincing as they used to be? Then, for better or worse, we consumers will turn away from Google. After all, once search is screwed up, it doesn’t matter which AI we use, right? But unfortunately, we will then have to live with the fact that a number of offers will have disappeared, and yes, Google will have proactively made the internet a worse place. Is that what you really want, Google? And is it really only the EU Commission that can save us from this now?