Search engines like Google are not providing the service that they promised as the search engine of the web. They are trying to keep the traffic for themselves instead of providing links to useful resources around the web. I don’t like SEO because we focus more on keywords than the actual message. Also, we have to depend on search engine companies to bring us users or readers.
The main issue today is that AI is trying to make some websites useless. They show answers on a website using content from other sites, but the original authors do not get traffic, recognition, or money.
AI fed from the open web. However, the same companies are gatekeeping the knowledge colected by AI by charging while blocking visitors to the original source.
The amount of work needed to create an article or post based on research and not AI slop, it is large and needs to be recognized. That is without counting, search engine optimization so the article can be listed in search engines. For example, JSON-Schemas, basic titles, descriptions, links, and more. But, the only traffic websites are getting are AI bots stealing the content with and without attribution. Some can give you attribution but with a small and minimal link that the user will never click on.
I love the web and the openess is one of the reasons I choose this career because it is really one of the elements that makes us close to each other. I don't have to wait days or weeks to talk to someone far away or get the latest news from my home country. However, this openness is ending because search engines are creating a monopoly. Instead of giving you a list of websites to check out, they are deciding to answer questions directly without crediting sources. I prefer to see a list of sources and I am making a decision of what is the good or bad source.
At the moment, I am using DuckDuckGo and the Brave search engine more and more. I want to do the research myself. I don’t want the helpful links to be lost on the second page of the search results.