I am not going to sugarcoat it: it has been an terrible final yr for small digital publishers like me. I’ve spent the final 15 years constructing this journey weblog right into a trusted supply of data, and in lower than 12 months it has gone from a extremely profitable enterprise I used to be assured in to a ticking time bomb that I am fearful of.
And all of it comes right down to Large Dangerous Google and the rise of AI.
Should you additionally work inside digital publishing, you are most likely feeling this, too. I have never heard of many small, unbiased web site house owners who have not felt the consequences of this within the final yr or so. However I noticed not too long ago that the common reader of my web site or follower on social media has no thought what has been occurring to us behind the scenes.
So I am right here to point out you.
Let me be clear: I nonetheless LOVE what I do right here. The blood, sweat, tears, and tens (tons of?) of 1000’s of {dollars} I’ve poured into this web site through the years have been price it, and I am so, so happy with what I’ve constructed. There are greater than 800 posts on this weblog, protecting 50+ nations on 6 continents world wide. I’ve received awards, spoken at conferences, and been interviewed as an professional on each journey and journey running a blog. However the final yr has been something however encouraging.
Within the final yr (2024), I’ve misplaced roughly 40% of the site visitors on this web site alone. My advert revenue (which is the primary manner I earn cash) is down 34% yr over yr (although a pair months in the past, it was down 42% yr over yr). And I am truly thought-about to be one of many fortunate ones, as lots of my fellow bloggers have misplaced practically every part within the final 12 months.
So what the hell occurred? It is a combination of AI turning into extra ubiquitous and “studying” (learn: stealing) from websites like mine, and Google making adjustments to its algorithms that actively damage small publishers as a way to increase its personal earnings.
I am not gonna get tremendous technical with this, however I do need to provide you with just a little perception on how this has all occurred so rapidly.
How AI has developed
AI, or Synthetic Intelligence, because it pertains to the web will not be new; AI has been round for many years, streamlining processes, constructing algorithms, and automating all method of duties. (This is a superb historic AI timeline.) However issues accelerated within the twenty first century, after we started to get issues like IBM’s Watson and Apple’s Siri, which had been AI instruments designed not simply to assist people, however to imitate them.
Within the final handful of years, AI has developed quickly into the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) period, with consumer-facing instruments rising that may not solely automate duties, but additionally generate their very own content material.
The appearance of “giant language mannequin” instruments like all of the GPTs are what’s at present driving the AI Renaissance. The ChatGPTs of the world that may write essays, keep it up conversations, and even generate pictures sound cool on the floor. However beneath, they’re what might finally be the downfall of industries like mine.
How does AI be taught?
First issues first: all AI instruments at present in the marketplace (and any future ones that will probably be launched) are machine studying instruments. Irrespective of how life-like an AI chat bot or assistant could appear, they don’t seem to be actual, and don’t possess human feelings, morals, or reasoning. Which means somebody has to “train” them every part they know.
The massive query (and an ongoing authorized query) is with regard to that “instructing.”
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, it made AI know-how obtainable to the lots. Anybody might now use AI to ask a query, write an essay, brainstorm concepts, and even plan a visit. However the output that ChatGPT and related AI instruments give has to come back from someplace.
Each iteration of OpenAI’s GPT (which truly dates again to 2018) has been educated on quite a lot of sources or parameters. The primary model of ChatGPT was educated on “570 GB of information sourced from books, Wikipedia, analysis articles, webtexts, web sites and different types of content material and writing on the web. Roughly 300 billion phrases had been fed into the system.”
Different corporations have admitted to coaching their AI instruments on every part from Reddit threads to YouTube movies – all content material created by precise people who by no means gave any of those generative AI fashions permission to mainly scrape their content material. There are various ongoing courtroom circumstances in opposition to the likes of OpenAI, Meta, Perplexity AI, and others surrounding this unauthorized and uncompensated use of mental property.
And the AI corporations have admitted that they’ve finished (and nonetheless do) this, however use the excuse that “it will be unattainable to coach as we speak’s main AI fashions with out utilizing copyrighted supplies.” (supply)
How AI is affecting me
You will not possible discover me submitting a lawsuit in opposition to Microsoft or Meta anytime quickly, as a result of I am small potatoes within the grand area that’s the web. However generative AI is now all over the place, and it is affecting me – and possibly you – day-after-day.
Not a day goes by with out Gmail prompting me to let its Gemini AI write an e mail for me, or Fb’s Meta AI offering me with irrelevant hyperlinks beneath pictures, or emails from corporations providing to “create” me an AI finest pal (sure, that is actual). Meta even tried to launch “AI customers” not too long ago, although it to this point hasn’t gone very effectively.
Throughout the journey trade alone, we’re additionally now seeing every part from AI chat bots providing to plan journey itineraries to precise AI journey influencers (insert the biggest eyeroll potential right here). All of those will take not solely work but additionally authority away from precise human journey content material creators who spend time and cash truly touring to locations as a way to give recommendations on them.
An AI chat bot has no actual idea of time or distance, and positively has no first-hand expertise with journey. All it takes is an individual to have one unhealthy expertise with an AI-planned journey, they usually’ll begin mistrusting all the journey content material they see on-line.
The price of AI
I additionally need to briefly contact on the true price of AI instruments like ChatGPT – and I am not speaking concerning the direct price to your pocketbook, since most of those AI instruments are free for the common particular person to make use of. I am speaking concerning the staggering environmental price that no person appears to be speaking about. (Then once more, perhaps you simply do not know!)
To ensure that AI to do what it does, it requires completely MASSIVE quantities of power to energy large information facilities. Information facilities owned by the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Meta will not be new; however they’re rising exponentially with the rise of AI know-how.
And with an elevated demand for power (on this case, electrical energy to run all these tremendous computer systems) comes an elevated demand for tactics to generate that electrical energy. Though Google has made some huge guarantees to scale back its carbon footprint, the rise in fossil gasoline utilization to energy information facilities has meant that, within the final 5 years, Google’s greenhouse gasoline emissions have elevated by 48% – 13% in 2023 alone.
It is estimated that a few of these information facilities will quickly be utilizing extra electrical energy than whole cities to energy the ChatGPTs and Geminis and DALL-Es of the world. Google and different tech giants are even trying towards nuclear energy to fulfill the energy-guzzling wants of AI.
And power is not the one factor that AI is guzzling. The ability required to run all these servers produces an immense quantity warmth as a byproduct. And as a way to cool the methods down, many information facilities use copious quantities of water; extra water than anybody initially thought, in actual fact.
A 2024 research discovered that that asking ChatGPT to put in writing you one quick e mail consumes the equal of a 16 oz bottle of water – and that does not consider the quantity of water used to *practice* the AI to have the ability to reply that e mail.
Some information facilities used a closed-loop cooling system the place the water may be re-used a number of instances, however there is a finite variety of instances the water may be recycled, and a few of it’s at all times misplaced to evaporation. And that is all in a day and age when scientists are predicting that world demand for recent water will exceed provide by 40% by 2030, and Google and Microsoft are already working information facilities in areas going through water shortage.
It is estimated {that a} single ChatGPT immediate makes use of wherever from 10x to 25x the quantity of power/water {that a} “regular” Google search would use. Just a few meals for thought.
Blogs, Google, and the HCU
And talking of Google searches…
Google has been the primary arbiter of data on the net for 20+ years. Its very identify has turn out to be a verb to imply “to look one thing up on the web” (as in, “simply Google it“).
As a blogger, as a way to have my content material “discovered” on the web, I’ve needed to play by Google’s guidelines. As a result of, prefer it or not, Google is the primary search engine used world wide. Google processes an estimated 5.9 million searches per minute, or 8.5 billion searches per day, and most bloggers have – up till now, at the least – relied on Google to ship them a superb chunk of their general site visitors.
And a web site like mine earns site visitors from Google by means of SEO, or website positioning. Search engine marketing is straightforward on the floor: mainly, you attempt to reply queries along with your content material that individuals are trying to find, after which use particular key phrases in that content material to sign to a search engine like Google that your content material is related in answering that question. Google’s algorithm then decides which content material is definitely “finest” for any question, and locations that content material on the prime of search outcomes.
Or, at the least, that is what it is alleged to do.
(For reference, in 2023, Google search drove roughly 75% of my whole web site site visitors, accounting for greater than 1.3 million classes on this web site. In 2024, Google nonetheless drove 75% of my site visitors, however the variety of classes dropped to round 870,000.)
Are blogs lifeless to Google?
For years, blogs and different small websites appeared to have simply as a lot probability of exhibiting up on the prime of Google search outcomes as bigger websites. In case your content material was good (as in, on-topic, well-written, and customarily useful), the search outcomes would replicate that.
However one thing modified in the previous few years.
Now look: I am not a Google insider, and among the issues which have occurred to go looking within the final decade might very effectively be coincidental, or simply the pure evolution of the web (even when I hate it). However there are a number of issues that definitely appear related, and that counsel that Google perhaps cares much less and fewer about people and good search outcomes today and an increasing number of about advert {dollars}. (Welcome to capitalism!)
Google employed Prabhakar Raghavan (the man who was in command of Yahoo search from 2005-2012 – you recognize, when it was run into the bottom) to move each Google Search and Advertisements in 2020, and search outcomes have seen dramatic adjustments since then. (This text is a unbelievable if scathing take a look at Raghavan, who was changed in October 2024.)
The “Useful” Content material Replace of 2023
Google is continually releasing updates to its search algorithm, with normally a pair main updates pushed out every year. These updates intention to enhance search outcomes to raised meet person intent. And for years, they kind of did appear to weed out spammy websites and misinformation, and supply searchers with the data they had been searching for.
I’ve identified bloggers who acquired “hit” (i.e. negatively affected) by varied Google algorithm updates through the years. However they had been at all times the outliers and never the norm; typically, in the event you had been publishing “good” content material (i.e. written by you that was both useful or at the least entertaining ultimately), then your web site would normally fare okay in main updates. And in the event you did get hit in an replace, there was normally a manner you possibly can enhance your web site and begin gaining search site visitors once more.
However then got here the “Useful Content material Replace” in September 2023. This was not the primary Useful Content material Replace (HCU) Google had ever launched, however it was the primary that appeared to focus on smaller publishers throughout the online.
Google claimed this replace was going to concentrate on “figuring out alerts of high quality that correspond to useful content material” – which feels like a superb factor, proper?
However what occurred was many small web sites and blogs abruptly noticed their content material falling down in rankings, or disappearing from search outcomes altogether. On the identical time, we noticed a rise in sponsored content material, skinny content material from big manufacturers/publishers, and outdated content material from boards like Reddit, Quora, and TripAdvisor abruptly showing on the prime of search outcomes.
Gaslit by Google
Google claimed that websites negatively affected within the September 2023 HCU had been maybe not truly useful, or had been perhaps attempting to recreation the algorithm by publishing spammy, keyword-stuffed website positioning content material that did not take actual human intent into consideration. Now… had been there websites on the market over-optimizing for website positioning? Certain! However loads of websites who acquired hit weren’t doing something flawed.
Google has stored insisting that they don’t seem to be slapping whole websites with an “unhelpful” qualifier, however the truth is that only a few websites that had been hit within the September 2023 HCU have seen any vital restoration.
website positioning specialists, web site builders, bloggers… we have all been at a loss. Each single one in all my blogger pals noticed much less site visitors in 2024 than in 2023. And, in some circumstances, the losses had been completely devastating; I am speaking as much as 90% site visitors (and revenue) loss for some websites.
And the websites that had been hit the worst all had one factor in widespread, no matter subject or trade: they had been all unbiased (i.e. small) web sites. (It could later come out in leaked paperwork that Google has been including a “smallPersonalSite” tag to determine smaller unbiased web sites – I ponder why?)
A second blow got here in March 2024, when one other core replace hit much more small websites. This was across the identical time that Google signed a $60 million cope with Reddit that will permit Google to coach its new AI tech on Reddit posts. Suspiciously, that is additionally when Reddit posts beginning exhibiting close to the highest of each single Google search. (Coincidence? Arduous to imagine it was.)
In October 2024, in what was maybe only a fluffy PR transfer, Google hosted a number of unbiased bloggers hit laborious by the HCU and different latest updates for a “Creator Dialog Occasion” at Google headquarters in California. To speak and “hear,” they claimed.
There are numerous experiences from bloggers who attended this occasion (learn this one or this one), they usually all agreed on a number of issues: particularly that Google was attempting to disclaim that huge manufacturers (and Reddit) have been given precedence in search outcomes, that websites hit by the HCU possible wouldn’t get well anytime quickly, and that they *did not know* why some objectively good websites had been so negatively affected.
What I extrapolated from that is that Google’s personal engineers do not even totally perceive how its algorithm works any longer, they usually couldn’t roll it again or reset it to a pre-HCU time even when they wished to. Search has modified ceaselessly.
When Google and AI unite
And this circles us again to AI.
AI in some type has already been at work for years to assist construct these sophisticated and secret search algorithms (that will or might not be uncontrolled now). However within the final couple years, Google has added AI to its outward choices to customers, too.
To not be left within the mud of generative AI and different tech giants like Microsoft and Meta, Google launched its personal chatbot, Bard, to the world within the first half of 2023. Bard acquired off to a rocky begin, however ultimately developed into Gemini.
However Google took its AI integration to a different degree in Could 2024, rolling out “AI Overviews” in its search outcomes as a part of its new “Search Generative Expertise (SGE).” These overviews now seem on the prime of most search outcome pages, and summarize among the prime search outcomes proper there on the web page.
The 2 principal issues are: Google’s AI can’t differentiate between correct info and spammy misinformation (which is how for some time it was suggesting individuals add glue to their pizza sauce), and it is simply regurgitating content material it is “studying,” thereby taking site visitors away from the websites it is pulling information from.
A web site like mine doesn’t make any cash from somebody seeing one thing I wrote in a Google AI Overview; I solely generate income (for instance, from advert impressions) when somebody clicks over to my web site and reads the content material on my web page. However why would they should click on over to my web page if Google is exhibiting my content material proper on the prime of search outcomes?
There was loads of uproar when AI Overviews first launched, each over the generally contradictory nature of solutions, and the truth that it was basically stealing content material from publishers with none credit score.
Google has lastly began including some citations to its AI Overviews, which is at the least a step in the proper course.
However these AI Overviews coupled with the opposite adjustments Google has made within the final yr have led to individuals simply not discovering content material on websites like mine any longer.
Sure, search outcomes suck now
I am certain that, for a few years, you possibly can do a Google search and discover what you had been searching for fairly rapidly. Sure, there have at all times been adverts in search outcomes, however for essentially the most half you used to have the ability to discover a stable reply to no matter search question you typed in with out scrolling too far down the web page.
Now, although, whenever you carry out a Google search, you may see a big AI Overview part (the display actual property this part takes up is simply rising), adopted by some hyperlinks to (probably outdated) on-line discussion board posts, adopted by adverts from few big-brand/marketing-focused web sites, adopted by a slew of video hyperlinks, and THEN perhaps some web site content material associated to what you had been trying to find. Possibly.
However you may also now end up returning to that Google search bar to attempt to re-write your search question as a result of Google is not actually exhibiting you what you requested for.
And that is 100% by design.
Google WANTS you to spend extra time inside its personal surroundings. The extra instances it’s important to run a Google search, the extra alternative Google has to point out you adverts/sponsored content material, and push you in direction of their very own instruments. Principally, the longer you spend inside the Google ecosystem, the extra money Google stands to make from you.
In 2024, Google noticed file income and income, regardless of an increasing number of individuals expressing wariness over the reliance on AI in search outcomes, and Google’s search market share falling under 90% for the primary time in a decade.
So what can we do?
This is the factor: I am tremendous captivated with this subject as a result of it is immediately affecting me and my potential to run this web site as my principal enterprise. I notice that lots of you haven’t (but) been affected by AI in any significant manner, aside from perhaps getting pissed off by crappy search outcomes.
However I do ask that you just think about the broader implications of a world that more and more depends on AI. My job is not going to be the one one which AI comes after.
Right here are some things we will all do proper now:
1. Be skeptical of AI
Whereas AI and GPTs have improved by leaps and bounds during the last yr, the very fact is that AI know-how continues to be simply that – know-how. It can’t assume for itself. It typically “hallucinates” or just makes issues up if it does not “know” (i.e. cannot discover) a solution. And it nonetheless may be pretty simply manipulated.
Listed below are only a few information tales from the final yr that I saved that spotlight among the unhealthy habits AI can rise up to:
And I imply, all of us keep in mind a number of years in the past when an early Microsoft AI chatbot become a Nazi on Twitter inside a day, proper?
AI will not be – and by no means will probably be – good, and simply blindly accepting every part that an AI device outputs as factually appropriate and morally sound is a mistake.
2. Do not use AI whenever you needn’t
Synthetic intelligence can completely be helpful. However do we actually want to make use of ChatGPT to create pretend cartoon pictures of our pets doing jobs, or reply emails we might write simply as rapidly ourselves? No. We actually do not. Particularly after we now have a greater thought of the environmental prices of all these AI queries.
There are many constructive use circumstances of AI, however there are many duties individuals are utilizing AI for that they only needn’t.
I do not WANT to see AI write novels or create motion pictures (have you ever seen this? it is horrible). I would like it to transcribe a podcast to make it extra accessible, and let me know if I’ve finished the mathematics flawed on my accounting spreadsheet. I do not want AI to construct me an itinerary for a metropolis it has by no means visited when there are actual individuals on the market who’ve been to that place who may also help me as a substitute.
3. Vote in your individual finest curiosity
There actually hasn’t been numerous dialog across the future actuality of AI when it comes to financial influence (I imply, what occurs when AI replaces so many roles that there aren’t sufficient jobs for actual people to do?) – however I think about there will probably be sooner or later.
And when these conversations start, take note of the lawmakers who get it, and who aren’t within the pockets of the mega-corporations seeking to save as a lot cash as potential by changing people with tech. (Then once more, who am I kidding? Within the US, they’re going to change us all with AI in a second if it means billionaires will make extra.)
4. Contemplate altering your default search engine
It is tough to keep away from AI today, even in search outcomes. However in the event you’re particularly pissed off at Google like most bloggers are today, there ARE different options on the market. Google nonetheless has a monopoly on search (actually, as determined by the DOJ), however it’s not the one search engine within the recreation.
Different options that do not depend on AI embody DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and Courageous. And Bing is an choice in the event you’re simply searching for less-manipulated search outcomes (although Bing is owned by Microsoft, and makes use of AI).
5. Comply with your favourite bloggers
If there are bloggers and creators you end up turning to and even simply stumbling upon recurrently, please think about doing a number of issues to assist them:
- Bookmark their web site – This one is really easy. Bookmark your favourite websites, and browse them recurrently in the event you can. Each single pageview is useful to us; you do not have to click on a single hyperlink or purchase something to ensure that me to earn cash from the adverts on my web site.
- Subscribe to their e-newsletter – Most bloggers have a free e mail e-newsletter – me included! (You’ll be able to join right here.) An e mail checklist is among the few issues a blogger “owns” past their web site, and is a good way to make sure you get common updates out of your favorites. (And in the event you already subscribe to your favourite bloggers, keep in mind that clicking on hyperlinks is a simple approach to assist us!) Some bloggers may additionally provide paid subscriptions by means of Patreon or Substack, too, which is a direct revenue stream you possibly can assist in the event you’re capable of.
- Share with a pal – Sure, sharing a weblog submit or Instagram submit and even simply the identify of your favourite blogger/creator may also help! Phrase of mouth nonetheless issues.
And if there are journey bloggers you observe recurrently, perhaps think about checking their web site for journey information first earlier than turning to ChatGPT or an outdated Reddit discussion board from 2015 whenever you’re planning a visit of your individual. (And in the event you can guide a resort or tour by means of a journey blogger’s affiliate hyperlink, that is additionally tremendous useful, too!)
What I am doing as a blogger
Sadly, lots of my journey running a blog colleagues have already thrown within the towel. Some have needed to let go writers and editors; others have shifted consideration to different mediums like YouTube; and nonetheless others have give up solely and gotten different full-time jobs once more.
As a small writer attempting desperately to maintain my head above water, there are some things I am engaged on for the time being. These embody:
- Making an attempt to develop my site visitors numbers from non-Google sources such a Pinterest, my e mail checklist (are you subscribed?), and my social media channels. It’s a very, very lengthy street to interchange the quantity of site visitors that Google search used to ship me, although, and most of my site visitors will possible by no means come again.
- Brainstorming services and products to supply. I already promote some printable variations of my hottest itineraries, and should put collectively a travel-related book or two this yr. However these will not be big money-makers.
- Contemplating different websites and sources of revenue. I’ve a second area of interest web site (Cleveland Traveler) that is not as huge as this one (and that additionally misplaced site visitors in a latest replace), however that has a extra focused viewers on social media. I acquired on the proper PR lists final yr (do not ask me how; I want I knew), and made a large quantity of revenue in 2024 from paid partnerships on Instagram and TikTok. I would like to proceed determining land extra work like that.
Others I do know are testing placing up paywalls on their websites, operating group excursions, or shifting over to being journey brokers as a substitute of journey bloggers. There are many choices, and nobody is aware of what the very best path forward is.
What I am NOT considering but is quitting.
I’m very conscious that Google might proceed chipping away at my site visitors till I am not making sufficient cash to do that as my full-time job. And I’ll mourn that just like the loss of life of a beloved one if/when it occurs. However we’re not there but, and I plan to proceed touring and publishing new content material on this web site so long as I can.
My technique is not altering that a lot, although I do assume I am going to focus extra on a mix of content material sorts and matters, holding in thoughts that I would like to put in writing issues which have an opportunity of catching peoples’ eye on social media since they don’t seem to be more likely to discover most of my content material in search outcomes any longer.
I do not plan to cease running a blog. However I’m beginning to come to phrases with the truth that I would, in some unspecified time in the future within the subsequent couple years, must declare defeat and switch to one thing else as my principal supply of revenue. Lots of my pals are sadly already there.
Is there any hope?
Pay attention, one in all my favourite motion pictures as a child was “Pollyanna,” and perhaps it had extra of an influence on my younger thoughts than I noticed, as a result of I nonetheless discover myself feeling optimistic about this web site and my “job” as a journey blogger extra typically than I let myself really feel careworn. That does not imply that my site visitors will not be solely wiped away tomorrow, as a result of it may very well be.
However I do not see a future the place the web does not exist. How individuals entry info may change, and I definitely don’t condone AI bots stealing all of the work I’ve personally finished. However I do nonetheless imagine there’s a demand for content material like mine, if solely individuals can discover it.
So in the event you worth content material created by people for people like what you discover on this web site, please think about talking up and exhibiting that assist in no matter methods you possibly can.
Thanks for studying. Should you acquired this far, you deserve a cookie.
– Amanda
Amanda Williams is the award-winning blogger behind A Harmful Enterprise Journey Weblog. She has traveled to greater than 60 nations on 6 continents from her residence base in Ohio, specializing in experiential and considerate journey by means of the US, Europe, and remainder of the world. Amanda solely shares suggestions primarily based on her private experiences and locations she’s truly traveled!