How Google and AI are Killing Journey Blogs Like Mine
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 frightened of.
And all of it comes all the way down to Massive Dangerous Google and the rise of AI.
Should you additionally work inside digital publishing, you are in all probability feeling this, too. I have never heard of many small, impartial web site house owners who have not felt the results of this within the final yr or so. However I spotted just lately that the common reader of my website 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 (a whole lot?) of hundreds of {dollars} I’ve poured into this website through the years have been value it, and I am so, so happy with what I’ve constructed. There are greater than 800 posts on this weblog, protecting 50+ international locations on 6 continents world wide. I’ve gained 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 website alone. My advert revenue (which is the primary approach 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 really thought of to be one of many fortunate ones, as a lot of my fellow bloggers have misplaced almost the whole lot 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 harm small publishers so as to enhance its personal earnings.
I am not gonna get tremendous technical with this, however I do wish to offer you slightly perception on how this has all occurred so shortly.
How AI has developed
AI, or Synthetic Intelligence, because it pertains to the web shouldn’t be new; AI has been round for many years, streamlining processes, constructing algorithms, and automating all method of duties. (Here is a very good historic AI timeline.) However issues accelerated within the twenty first century, once 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 in addition generate their very own content material.
The arrival of “giant language mannequin” instruments like all of the GPTs are what’s at the moment driving the AI Renaissance. The ChatGPTs of the world that may write essays, stick with it 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 study?
First issues first: all AI instruments at the moment available on the market (and any future ones that will probably be launched) are machine studying instruments. Regardless 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. That means somebody has to “educate” them the whole lot they know.
The massive query (and an ongoing authorized query) is with reference to that “instructing.”
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, it made AI know-how obtainable to the plenty. 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 return from someplace.
Each iteration of OpenAI’s GPT (which really 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 data 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 the whole lot 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 court cases 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 right this moment’s main AI fashions with out utilizing copyrighted supplies.” (source)
How AI is affecting me
You will not probably discover me submitting a lawsuit in opposition to Microsoft or Meta anytime quickly, as a result of I am small potatoes within the grand subject that’s the web. However generative AI is now in all places, and it is affecting me – and doubtless you – every single day.
Not a day goes by with out Gmail prompting me to let its Gemini AI write an electronic 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 greatest buddy (sure, that is actual). Meta even tried to launch “AI customers” just lately, although it so far hasn’t gone very well.
Throughout the journey business alone, we’re additionally now seeing the whole lot from AI chat bots providing to plan journey itineraries to precise AI travel influencers (insert the most important eyeroll attainable right here). All of those will take not solely work but in addition authority away from precise human journey content material creators who spend time and cash really touring to locations so as to give tips on them.
An AI chat bot has no actual idea of time or distance, and definitely 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 wish to briefly contact on the true value of AI instruments like ChatGPT – and I am not speaking in regards to the direct value to your pocketbook, since most of those AI instruments are free for the common particular person to make use of. I am speaking in regards to the staggering environmental value that no one appears to be speaking about. (Then once more, possibly you simply do not know!)
To ensure that AI to do what it does, it requires completely MASSIVE quantities of vitality 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 vitality (on this case, electrical energy to run all these tremendous computer systems) comes an elevated demand for methods to generate that electrical energy. Though Google has made some massive guarantees to scale back its carbon footprint, the rise in fossil gas utilization to energy information facilities has meant that, within the final 5 years, Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 48% – 13% in 2023 alone.
It is estimated that a few of these information facilities will quickly be using more electricity than entire cities to energy the ChatGPTs and Geminis and DALL-Es of the world. Google and different tech giants are even looking toward nuclear power to fulfill the energy-guzzling wants of AI.
And vitality is not the one factor that AI is guzzling. The facility required to run all these servers produces an immense quantity warmth as a byproduct. And so as to cool the techniques down, many information facilities use copious amounts of water; extra water than anybody initially thought, in reality.
A 2024 study discovered that that asking ChatGPT to jot down you one brief electronic mail consumes the equal of a 16 oz bottle of water – and that does not take note of the quantity of water used to *practice* the AI to have the ability to reply that electronic mail.
Some information facilities used a closed-loop cooling system the place the water might be re-used a number of occasions, however there is a finite variety of occasions the water might 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 international demand for recent water will exceed supply by 40% by 2030, and Google and Microsoft are already working information facilities in areas facing water scarcity.
It is estimated {that a} single ChatGPT immediate makes use of wherever from 10x to 25x the quantity of vitality/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 title 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, so as 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, a minimum of – relied on Google to ship them a very good chunk of their general site visitors.
And a website like mine earns site visitors from Google via SEO, or search engine optimization. Search engine marketing is straightforward on the floor: mainly, you attempt to reply queries together with your content material that persons are looking for, 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 “greatest” for any question, and locations that content material on the prime of search outcomes.
Or, a minimum of, that is what it is presupposed to do.
(For reference, in 2023, Google search drove roughly 75% of my complete website site visitors, accounting for greater than 1.3 million classes on this website. In 2024, Google nonetheless drove 75% of my site visitors, however the variety of classes dropped to round 870,000.)
Are blogs useless to Google?
For years, blogs and different small websites appeared to have simply as a lot likelihood of displaying 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 usually useful), the search outcomes would mirror that.
However one thing modified in the previous few years.
Now look: I am not a Google insider, and a number of the issues which have occurred to go looking within the final decade might very nicely 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 recommend that Google possibly cares much less and fewer about people and good search outcomes lately and an increasing number of about advert {dollars}. (Welcome to capitalism!)
Google employed Prabhakar Raghavan (the man who was accountable for 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 article is a improbable if scathing have a look at Raghavan, who was changed in October 2024.)
The “Useful” Content material Replace of 2023
Google is consistently releasing updates to its search algorithm, with often a pair main updates pushed out every year. These updates purpose to enhance search outcomes to higher meet consumer intent. And for years, they roughly did appear to weed out spammy websites and misinformation, and supply searchers with the data they had been in search of.
I’ve recognized bloggers who acquired “hit” (i.e. negatively affected) by numerous Google algorithm updates through the years. However they had been at all times the outliers and never the norm; usually, when you had been publishing “good” content material (i.e. written by you that was both useful or a minimum of entertaining in a roundabout way), then your website would often fare okay in main updates. And when you did get hit in an replace, there was often a approach you may enhance your website 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 give attention to “identifying signals of quality that correspond to useful content material” – which appears like a very good factor, proper?
However what occurred was many small web sites and blogs instantly noticed their content material falling down in rankings, or disappearing from search outcomes altogether. On the similar time, we noticed a rise in sponsored content material, skinny content material from large manufacturers/publishers, and outdated content material from boards like Reddit, Quora, and TripAdvisor instantly 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 really useful, or had been possibly attempting to sport the algorithm by publishing spammy, keyword-stuffed search engine optimization content material that did not take actual human intent into consideration. Now… had been there websites on the market over-optimizing for search engine optimization? Certain! However loads of websites who acquired hit weren’t doing something unsuitable.
Google has stored insisting that they don’t seem to be slapping complete websites with an “unhelpful” qualifier, however the reality is that only a few websites that had been hit within the September 2023 HCU have seen any vital restoration.
search engine optimization consultants, website builders, bloggers… we have all been at a loss. Each single certainly one of my blogger mates 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 frequent, no matter subject or business: they had been all impartial (i.e. small) web sites. (It will later come out in leaked documents that Google has been including a “smallPersonalSite” tag to determine smaller impartial 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 similar time that Google signed a $60 million deal with Reddit that might enable Google to coach its new AI tech on Reddit posts. Suspiciously, that is additionally when Reddit posts beginning displaying close to the highest of each single Google search. (Coincidence? Onerous to imagine it was.)
In October 2024, in what was maybe only a fluffy PR transfer, Google hosted a number of impartial bloggers hit arduous by the HCU and different current updates for a “Creator Dialog Occasion” at Google headquarters in California. To speak and “pay attention,” they claimed.
There are numerous experiences from bloggers who attended this occasion (learn this one or this one), they usually all agreed on a couple of issues: specifically that Google was attempting to disclaim that massive manufacturers (and Reddit) have been given precedence in search outcomes, that websites hit by the HCU probably wouldn’t get better 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 absolutely 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 needed to. Search has modified endlessly.
When Google and AI unite
And this circles us again to AI.
AI in some kind has already been at work for years to assist construct these sophisticated and secret search algorithms (which will or might not be uncontrolled now). However within the final couple years, Google has added AI to its outward choices to shoppers, 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 start, however finally developed into Gemini.
However Google took its AI integration to a different stage in Might 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 consequence pages, and summarize a number of the prime search outcomes proper there on the web page.
The 2 most important issues are: Google’s AI can’t differentiate between correct info and spammy misinformation (which is how for some time it was suggesting people 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 data from.
A website 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 website and reads the content material on my web page. However why would they should click on over to my web page if Google is displaying 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 a minimum of a step in the best route.
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 positive that, for a few years, you may do a Google search and discover what you had been in search of fairly shortly. Sure, there have at all times been advertisements 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, if you carry out a Google search, you may see a big AI Overview part (the display screen actual property this part takes up is only increasing), adopted by some hyperlinks to (probably outdated) on-line discussion board posts, adopted by advertisements from few big-brand/marketing-focused web sites, adopted by a slew of video hyperlinks, and THEN possibly some web site content material associated to what you had been looking for. Possibly.
However you may additionally 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 displaying you what you requested for.
And that is 100% by design.
Google WANTS you to spend extra time inside its personal setting. The extra occasions it’s a must to run a Google search, the extra alternative Google has to point out you advertisements/sponsored content material, and push you in the direction of their very own instruments. Mainly, the longer you spend throughout the Google ecosystem, the extra money Google stands to make from you.
In 2024, Google saw record profits 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 below 90% for the primary time in a decade.
So what can we do?
Here is the factor: I am tremendous keen about this subject as a result of it is straight affecting me and my skill to run this website as my most important enterprise. I notice that a lot of you haven’t (but) been affected by AI in any significant approach, aside from possibly getting annoyed by crappy search outcomes.
However I do ask that you simply think about the broader implications of a world that more and more depends on AI. My job won’t 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 actual fact is that AI know-how remains to be simply that – know-how. It can’t suppose for itself. It typically “hallucinates” or just makes issues up if it would not “know” (i.e. cannot discover) a solution. And it nonetheless might be pretty simply manipulated.
Listed below are just some information tales from the final yr that I saved that spotlight a number of 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 turned into a Nazi on Twitter inside a day, proper?
AI shouldn’t be – and by no means will probably be – excellent, and simply blindly accepting the whole lot that an AI instrument outputs as factually right and morally sound is a mistake.
2. Do not use AI if you need not
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 shortly ourselves? No. We actually do not. Particularly once 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 persons are utilizing AI for that they simply need not.
I do not WANT to see AI write novels or create films (have you seen this? it is horrible). I need it to transcribe a podcast to make it extra accessible, and let me know if I’ve finished the maths unsuitable 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 an alternative.
3. Vote in your personal greatest curiosity
There actually hasn’t been a variety of dialog across the future actuality of AI by way of financial affect (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 trying to save as a lot cash as attainable by changing people with tech. (Then once more, who am I kidding? Within the US, they will exchange 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 lately, even in search outcomes. However when you’re particularly pissed off at Google like most bloggers are lately, there ARE different options on the market. Google nonetheless has a monopoly on search (actually, as decided by the DOJ), however it’s not the one search engine within the sport.
Different options that do not depend on AI embody DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and Courageous. And Bing is an choice when you’re simply in search of 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 repeatedly, please think about doing a couple of issues to help them:
- Bookmark their website – This one is very easy. Bookmark your favourite websites, and skim them repeatedly when 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 advertisements on my website.
- Subscribe to their e-newsletter – Most bloggers have a free electronic mail e-newsletter – me included! (You can sign up here.) An electronic mail record is among the few issues a blogger “owns” past their website, and is an effective way to make sure you get common updates out of your favorites. (And when you already subscribe to your favourite bloggers, keep in mind that clicking on hyperlinks is a straightforward approach to help us!) Some bloggers may also provide paid subscriptions via Patreon or Substack, too, which is a direct revenue stream you may help when you’re capable of.
- Share with a buddy – Sure, sharing a weblog put up or Instagram put up and even simply the title of your favourite blogger/creator may also help! Phrase of mouth nonetheless issues.
And if there are journey bloggers you comply with repeatedly, possibly think about checking their website for journey data first earlier than turning to ChatGPT or an outdated Reddit discussion board from 2015 if you’re planning a visit of your personal. (And when you can e-book a resort or tour via a journey blogger’s affiliate hyperlink, that is additionally tremendous useful, too!)
What I am doing as a blogger
Sadly, a lot 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 completely 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 in the mean time. These embody:
- Making an attempt to develop my site visitors numbers from non-Google sources such a Pinterest, my electronic mail record (are you subscribed?), and my social media channels. It’s a very, very lengthy highway to switch the quantity of site visitors that Google search used to ship me, although, and most of my site visitors will probably by no means come again.
- Brainstorming services and products to supply. I already promote some printable versions of my most popular itineraries, and should put collectively a travel-related e book or two this yr. However these will not be large money-makers.
- Contemplating different websites and sources of revenue. I’ve a second area of interest website (Cleveland Traveler) that is not as massive as this one (and that additionally misplaced site visitors in a current replace), however that has a extra focused viewers on social media. I acquired on the best 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 might like to proceed determining learn how to land extra work like that.
Others I do know are testing placing up paywalls on their websites, working group excursions, or shifting over to being journey brokers as an alternative of journey bloggers. There are many choices, and nobody is aware of what one of the 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 now not making sufficient cash to do that as my full-time job. And I’ll mourn that just like the demise 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 website so long as I can.
My technique is not altering that a lot, although I do suppose I am going to focus extra on a mix of content material varieties and matters, maintaining in thoughts that I want to jot down issues which have an opportunity of catching peoples’ eye on social media since they are not prone 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 fact that I would, in some unspecified time in the future within the subsequent couple years, have to declare defeat and switch to one thing else as my most important supply of revenue. A lot of my mates are sadly already there.
Is there any hope?
Hear, certainly one of my favourite films as a child was “Pollyanna,” and possibly it had extra of an affect on my younger thoughts than I spotted, as a result of I nonetheless discover myself feeling optimistic about this website and my “job” as a journey blogger extra typically than I let myself really feel burdened. That does not imply that my site visitors will not be completely wiped away tomorrow, as a result of it may very well be.
However I do not see a future the place the web would 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 when you worth content material created by people for people like what you discover on this website, please think about talking up and displaying that help in no matter methods you may.
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 international locations on 6 continents from her residence base in Ohio, specializing in experiential and considerate journey via the US, Europe, and remainder of the world. Amanda solely shares ideas based mostly on her private experiences and locations she’s really traveled!
