Google's no-click schtick brings searching questions 

Market dominance leads to market abuses. Google is leading publishers to hell in a handcart, and they're making us build the handcart.

by Rob Corbidge

Published: 15:00, 13 March 2025

When the phrase "walled garden" is conjured up in the context of public tech, we typically think of Apple with its entire eco-system, that, for a price, provides security and reliability within its propriety purview.

Apple is of course a hardware proposition first and foremost, with everything else they offer coming through the possession of an Apple device, and thus its modus operandi has been typically contrasted with the approach of Google. Those contrasts are coming rapidly to a close.

The most recent data from 2024 shows that 60% of Google searches ended without a click being made. 

That is to say, many searchers found their answer presented to them by Google itself, at the top of their search, or abandoned searching entirely - we can’t tell which but rest assured Google knows, and knows how big an opportunity these figures represent. 

We've all watched as Google returned more and more responses in this manner, and now it seems we are approaching the apogee of this trend, as it becomes crystal clear that the intention is to provide most search responses using the company's AI Overviews function.

David Buttle, formerly director of platform strategy and public affairs for the Financial Times, has posed some searching questions for the search giant this week about its intentions towards the publishers who provide the data that enables AI Overviews to, well, provide such overviews.

For, to all intents and purposes, it seems Google are attempting to build their own walled garden, filled with plants not grown by them. And not paid for. Audacious, one might say. Scumbaggery, say more.

Buttle's 12 reasonable questions for Google would all be simple for the company to answer. Yet, for a business that is supposed to be about information, it's almost certain no answers will be forthcoming.

Key among Buttle's questions are:

• "Will Google be compensating publishers for the use of content in AI Mode?"
• "Are the proportion of ‘zero-click’ searches higher when an AI Overview is displayed?"
• "What does Google estimate the impact of AI Mode will be on publisher traffic?
• "Why is Google not providing separated data for AI Overviews in Search Console?"
• "Will Google be deploying AI Overview or AI Mode on queries relating to news topics?"

These questions are important, because, as it stands currently, Google also sits in a dominant position with AI search. Recent data released by SparkToro co-founder Rand Fishkin shows that ChatGPT search has barely made a dent in the segment.

Publishers desperately need an alternative that at the very least forces Google to moderate their slash and burn approach to content they did not produce. That a potential white knight comes in the form of OpenAI shows how desperate that situation is.

There are broader concerns about the reliability of such AI curated information. It is no small irony that while recently studying some of the methods used to create synthetic training data, I was returned a number of search queries on the subject clearly written by AI, and poorly written too.

As Ethan Mollick has pointed out in a recent post, a theme with the current state of AI is that it's great to augment the work of someone who has understanding of the area in which they are using it, much less so when they don't. 

Another example of this was recently given by the chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, the highest rated player in history. Playing against AI systems had given someone with his understanding of the game some ideas about new strategies and moves, he said, ideas he actually put into practice to win games. To an average Joe or Josephine, such subtleties would go unnoticed.

This fits the technical idea of AI systems as tools for specific tasks, rather than the panacea we are being informed the technology is.

At least it does seem Google remain in the cross hairs of the new US administration, despite their craven attempts to adjust to the new political reality. 

To quote a US Justice Department court filing from last Friday "Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that - no matter what occurs - Google always wins. American consumers and businesses suffer from Google’s conduct."

What seems most likely is that Google will be forced to divest Chrome, and thus loosen its fundamental search grip at the browser level.

Such a move wouldn't likely shatter the search and advertising empire they possess, but it would remove one important pillar that makes the whole setup possible.