LOL, LMAO: Inside the first 'SEO heist' of the AI era. Web2 is going great!
LOL, LMAO: Inside the first 'SEO heist' of the AI era. Web2 is going great!
Tech-help website Exceljet was cloned by a competitor using AI. It poses thorny questions for Google.
Basically: use GPT to help copy an entire web site, then jack their search results, get profit. Aided by the fact that search engines are shit. This is something you could do before, GAI just made it faster.
Web2 is going great!
"It's unusual that something acceptable, if done once, suddenly becomes unethical when reproduced at scale," he wrote on X earlier this month.
Ugh no gross. SEO grey goo is not "ethical" if done once. Do better. Do it zero times please.
This would be like saying: "It's unusual that bitcoin mining, if done on a CPU in 2009, suddenly becomes 'bad for the environment' when done with huge numbers of janky poorly regulated server farms in 2023"
[Google spokeswoman says] AI can be a useful tool to help people with creative endeavors, including the development of great content
And of course Google is too high on their AI supply to do anything about it...
18@sailor_sega_saturn @AcausalRobotGod It's like someone read Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and proceeded to bash themselves over the head with it.
5@sailor_sega_saturn @AcausalRobotGod It's literally the opposite of the categorical imperative, the philosophical equivalent of saying, "it's rare that ducks go quack"
8
Helpful reminder to spread the word on Google alternatives this holiday season. Bought Kagi subscriptions as stocking stuffers for my loved ones. Everyone who I have convinced to give it a try has been impressed thus far.
SEO will pillage the commons. It has been for years and years. Community diversity and alternative payment models for search are part of the bulwark.
12SEO will pillage the commons.
My personal conspiracy theory (not sure if I actually believe this yet):
The idea that people would use generative AI to make SEO easier (and thus make search engine results worse) was not an unfortunate side effect of generative AI, it was the entire purpose. It's no coincidence that OpenAI teamed up with Google's biggest rival in search engines; we're now seeing an arms race between tech giants using spambot generators to overwhelm the enemy's filters.
The decision to make chatGPT public was not about concern for openness (if it was they would have made the earlier versions of GPT public too), it's more that they had a business partner lined up and Google search had become enshittified enough that they thought they could pull off a successful "disruption".
6huh, the same folks in my life who were wrong about me regretting paying for email (protonmail) will love this
kagi looks interesting and I like their design compared with DuckDuckGo, but the usable tier seems to include a bit of AI crap I don’t want. is the AI shit opt-in (including their use of my data), and does it seem unlikely they’ll enshittify in the future?
5You can read their blog about the AI-crap, in terms of their approach and philosophy. In general, it is optional and not part of the major experience.
The main reason I use kagi is immediately obvious from doing seaches. I convinced my wife to switch to it when she ask, "ok but what results does it show when I search sailor moon?" and she saw the first page (fan sites, official merch, fun shit she had forgotten about for years).
What you need to know is that you pay money, and they have to give you results that you like. It's a whole different world.
7Kagi has definitely been given too much UX treatment to cut through the bullshit and just say "you pay because it is better"
this text on their pricing page is pretty eyerolly:
Kagi has no ads and is fully supported only by its users. We worked very hard to provide high quality, fast and tracking-free results at a minimum cost to ensure sustainability of our operation.
Gonna give it a shot tho :)
5Also meta but while I am big on slamming AI enshitification, I am still bullish on using machine learning tools to actually make products better. There are examples of this. Notice how artists react enthusiastically to the AI features of Procreate Dreams (workflow primarily built around human hand assisted by AI tools, ala what photoshop used to be) vs Midjourney (a slap in the face).
The future will involve more AI products. It's worthy to be skeptical. It's also worthy to vote with your money to send the signal: there is an alternative to enshitification.
4The AI stuff is entirely optional. I've been using Kagi for about four months and I forgot it exists. I haven't been nudged to use it even once. I think they're just buying AI service from someone else, not training their own.
So far they've been good about remembering they're providing a search experience as their product and not chasing shiny tech press objects. I find it does a consistently good job of just finding what you tell it to and otherwise just getting out of your way, which is honestly all I want a search engine to do.
4
Fandom/wikia, Pinterest, and similar SEO spam sites basically crowdsourced this.
10"SEO.AI" is such a cursed domain
6This is the best summary I could come up with:
The site relies heavily on Google search traffic, and with the tech giant periodically updating how it ranks websites, Bruns wondered whether he'd fallen out of the company's favor.
"The usual signal methods of what's true are no longer clear, and trusted sources like Google searches don't turn up the right things anymore," said Ethan Mollick, an associate professor at Wharton who studies the impact of AI.
SEO professionals help websites improve their ranking in search results, using tactics ranging from official Google trend analysis to more dubious trucks to game the system.
An expat from the north of England now living in Dubai, Ward and his business partner worked to boost business-planning software startup's Causal's presence on Google — in part by using generative AI to feed off Exceljet's existing content.
Even more galling for Bruns: When he reviewed the AI-generated Causal posts, he found factual errors in some articles, with one describing a purported feature that doesn't exist in Excel.
Sports Illustrated's publisher recently fired the magazine's CEO following a brouhaha over its publication of articles that featured fake writers and AI-generated profile pictures.
The original article contains 1,844 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 90%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
1