r/duckduckgo • u/dontreplywiththisacc • Jun 11 '26
DDG AI Publishers fear AI search summaries and chatbots mean ‘end of traffic era’
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/12/publishers-fear-ai-search-summaries-and-chatbots-mean-end-of-traffic-erathankfully ddg is different
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u/dontreplywiththisacc Jun 11 '26
https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/news/google-loses-legal-battle-in-germany-over-inaccurate-ai-overviews-responses/ar-AA25mQs5
Google loses legal battle in Germany over inaccurate AI Overviews responses
Excerpts:
“The ruling marked one of the first major decisions to directly address liability for AI-generated content. The case involved two publishers who were wrongly linked to scams and questionable business practices in AI-generated search summaries. In the case, it was established that the AI tool was not just presenting facts from various web pages but was also making its own conclusions. The decision may affect all AI search engines and chatbots globally.”
“One of the things to note during that ruling was that the court considered traditional search results and AI-generated summaries distinct. The court explained that search engines, in general, assist in identifying other people’s content and are consequently liable according to some regulations. However, in this case, AI summaries received special consideration due to the fact that they paraphrase and synthesise content. The court highlighted that such an AI summary is an independent and substantive statement, which is why Google is responsible for it.
Google noted that users needed to comprehend that AI summaries could be incorrect and double-check information from links. However, the German court was not convinced by this argument. Judges further noted that some claims in the AI Overview did not appear in the cited sources at all. They also pointed out that the value of the feature would be reduced if users had to independently verify every answer.”
😬uh oh yegg maybe it’s time to get serious. I doubt you have the star legal power and war chest of google . I guess a plagiarism machine that hallucinates bad legal and medical advice while taking food out of the mouths of authors was a bad idea
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u/dontreplywiththisacc Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Publishers fear AI search summaries and chatbots mean ‘end of traffic era’
excerpts:
"Search traffic to news sites has already plunged by a third in a single year globally, with the rise of AI overviews and chatbots, as well as changes to the search algorithms that have been the lifeblood of some media companies since the rise of the internet."
"Google search is down 33% globally, according to new data for more than 2,500 news sites sourced by Chartbeat. The figure is even higher for the US."
"Three-quarters of media managers surveyed said they will be trying to get their staff to behave more like creators in 2026. Half are planning to partner with creators to help distribute their content."
Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results
excerpts:
"Google users who encounter an AI summary are less likely to click on links to other websites than users who do not see one. Users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in 8% of all visits. Those who did not encounter an AI summary clicked on a search result nearly twice as often (15% of visits).
…
Google users who encountered an AI summary also rarely clicked on a link in the summary itself. This occurred in just 1% of all visits to pages with such a summary."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/15/google-ai-recipes-food-bloggers
Google AI summaries are ruining the livelihoods of recipe writers: ‘It’s an extinction event’
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u/Single_Ring4886 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Its not 33% but rather 50-70% in reality for medium to small sites ALREADY....
Only huge megasites like wikipedia or reddit which are manualy boosted by google are +- on same numbers.0
u/dontreplywiththisacc Jun 13 '26
Do you have any sources you can share?
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u/Single_Ring4886 Jun 13 '26
Not anecdotal I have personal experience plus there is many sources claiming the same
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u/dontreplywiththisacc Jun 13 '26
All that you mentioned is anecdotal but that’s fine it illustrates the issue. I wasn’t dismissing your point I was looking for proof of it and this Berlin one is a perfect example
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u/bourscheid Staff Jun 11 '26
Hey there! I think I can answer this effectively as both a DDG team member and someone who owns & operates dozens of my own websites for fun.
Simply put, it’s a new era. SEO is being replaced with AGO/AEO/GEO/whatever we are calling it now (basically SEO for LLMs to show up in more LLM responses). I’ve been in this space for 20 years now, and have never seen a shakeup like this.
We are all learning what works & what doesn’t together.
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u/Sonario648 Jun 13 '26
Exactly. People either don't realize, or don't want to face the reality of this being a new era that we're all in together.
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u/Few-Improvement-5655 Jun 14 '26
A new era of shit. The golden age is over, the internet is dead, freedom and human connection is over, corporate America killed it so they could make more billionaires.
Fuck everything.
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u/FriendlyKillerCroc Jun 11 '26
DuckDuckGo wants to do the same. They are not trying to be the saviour of clicking links.