I just tested ChatGPT Search vs. Google – here's the results | Hacker News Reader

I just tested ChatGPT Search vs. Google – here's the results

tomsguide.com

31 pointsisaacfrond30 comments

Chatgpt search looks great from this, but if it does end up replacing Google, the biggest losers will be sites like tomsguide.com. It's hard to see how they could continue to make money when I can get the same info directly from the search engine and never need to open their site again.

They even mention in the "best tvs" example that Google returns a link to one of their articles on tomsguide.com, while ChatGPT just shows a list of tvs with images. And yet, somehow they don't bring this issue up anywhere in the article.

Exactly. This is great for the user until the incentive for anyone to put out new content completely dries up, then not so much.

It depends. When someone is doing a real serious search, they will check the linked references, in which case they will visit TomsGuide if it's a cited reference. In contrast, when someone is doing a non-serious casual search, they typically won't visit the linked site. Overall, it will cut the visits by ~80%, but that takes us back to the early 2000s level of page hits, when good sites like TomsGuide could then still thrive.

I might understand the excitement for a truly new competitor in the search space, bit this article sounds more like an ad from openAI than something critical and informative.

This was absolutely my take, as well. I was wondering if I was looking at some Tom's guide knockoff.

And I still don't trust ChatGPT with facts. I do use it as a starting point for research, but then I switched to [my preferred paid search engine] to verify and correct.

Are you the same beej that made those network programming eBooks from forever ago? If so, thank you very much for those!

I am! You're welcome. :)

I introduced my wife to ChatGPT. A week later she told me “ChatGPT is everything I always wanted Google to be”.

It was a much more enlightening comment than any detailed review or analysis could provide me.

That quickly, over a decade of built up user engagement vanished.

My wife, and business partner also adopted ChatGTP into her workflow way faster than I expected. Many of her requests are simple copywriting tasks she used to request of me.

While my initial tests of ChatGTP search weren't great: I asked for a sports score and it gave me results from 2023. I'm 50/50 on it replacing a significant number of our Google queries in 2025.

At least Google is still "usable" meanwhile Youtube search became the biggest piece of cr*p ever produced: "Shorts" "People like you also like this completely unrelated content" "Do you want results? haha, here you have home results as well".

Kinda sad because it was amazing before.

Key word here is “introduced”.

Check back in after some extensive use.

Have her interact with it in earnest about a subject she is an expert in.

Her feedback comes from using it primarily for her interior design business in which she is already an expert.

She wants answers to her questions and seems satisfied with the quality of answers she receives. It was news to her that ChatGPT isn't always factual - but let's face it, neither are random web pages.

She wants an answer she can trust 90% and arguments that it's not 100% miss the tradeoff many people are likely willing to make by accepting some inaccuracy in exchange for time.

Can it find free to watch streams of tv shows and movies? Well Google doesn't work for that either anymore really, but I tried the russian search engine some time ago and it actually delivered.

Edit: Got the recommendation to try the russian search engine for another topic while i frustrated couldn't find anything on the common search engines and it worked. So for anyone out there looking into uncommon topics which are filtered you can give it a try.

Link to the Russian search engine please.

Yandex.com?

Kagi also seems to work for this when searching for "stream movies online". It also has LLM integration if you add a question mark to the end, and this answer also includes a free movie service with a link in the answer.

This is why google panicked and did that whole reorg around AI. The fact that they felt compelled to say “25% of all code was written using AI” in their last earnings report tells us how much they are panicking.

They probably realized they need to revamp their whole search UI but don’t know if they can take such a drastic step and put them squarely as a ChatGPT wannabe. They know they screwed up and are behind in terms of perception at least.

The other big player here is Meta. Their llama integration into their apps is amazing. I have pretty much stopped using google ever since I found the meta AI integration in WhatsApp.

> They probably realized they need to revamp their whole search

It’s not the UI that should scare them, but rather the fact that their business model relies on showing answers in a format that users don’t want and someone is now presenting that. It’s like a running a bakery during the Atkins low carb phase, except this isn’t a phase that will disappear and Google doesn’t know how not to be a bakery.

The “format” is the UI, that is what allows them to show ads. If they are forced to change the “format” to one single explanation or answer they cannot show ads like they do now and instead change their “UI” to be like chaptgpt’s. Which also means they have to change their advertising model fundamentally

It is deeper than what you are saying, which is the point of my post. Change the UI and the business model they rely on breaks. It isn’t a UI issue but a fundamental business model issue. Even if they wanted to change their model, there is zero chance they could replace that revenue quickly enough with different revenue. They are addicted to ad sales to the point where it is a wholesale reliance. Like an alcoholic that has a heart attack shortly after kicking alcohol, they can’t change now. They should have disrupted their own business ten years ago when the writing was on the wall.

To summarize: the UI is a symptom of the larger issue.

I tried to call explain the same thing to you that I was alluding and commenting on their business model to fundamentally change if the UI changes. It’s worse than the business model changing because from an end user perspective they will be chqnging to meet ChatGPT’s UI which will seem like much larger capitulation. I think we understand each other now though :)

I did a similar test and tried to pull up certain categories of individuals I am interested in, with their names and linkedin profile links. ChatGPT hallucinated the names and the links.

I simply cannot move to a search, where there is random hallucination because having to check for each and every result for hallucination defeats the purpose of search itself.

This is an obvious Apples vs Oranges comparison.

You should be comparing ChatGPT Search vs Gemini since they both are LLM that query a search engine for results that generates a text response based the the text it has been provided.

Google Search is an actual search engine and querying it like it is an LLM is going to give you bad results.

A good example of this is the query, What is Apple’s current stock price, and are there any recent news updates?

Why would you ever query Google like this? If you want stock prices and recent news you literally just type "Apple stock" in Google and you get everything you need.

Yes, and no. User does not care how it is implemented, or how it works.

This is clearly same domain: search.

> vs Gemini

The issue is that the free version of Gemini remains really bad. Perhaps the paid version of Gemini is better, but that's not available to most people.

Their flagship models are available for free for everyone: aistudio.google.com. You have the option to enable "search grounding" to get the same thing as ChatGPT Search.

I really love using ChatGPT within Raycast and I use it all the time and I’m sure it is replacing my kagi searches quite a bit.

I do use perplexity and I’m hoping that ChatGPT search can replace my perplexity subscription. I pay for so many subscriptions and would love to reduce them.

It’s ironic, because I’m paying for ChatGPT’s subscription, but I often pay for the api so I can use the latest model without restriction as well and I most often use ChatGPT through my Raycast subscription. The state of AI subscription services in insane.

    ... if your priority is clear, ad-free, conversational responses
    ... The clutter-free answers from ChatGPT Search
    ... ChatGPT answers because they are so concise and without advertisers
    In a cluttered web, ChatGPT feels like a helpful friend

This will not be its final form, though. I just hope when they get around to monetizing we have a choice between a free, ad-supported option or paid non-ads service.

> ChatGPT: Wow. Once again ChatGPT search provides a cleaner interface without promoted content. For searches this personal, the extra privacy-focused approach is much appreciated. It is far more appealing to me as a user who wants information without being targeted by ads during the search — or after.

“Without promoted content” Suuure… as it is and forever shall be.

> Winner: ChatGPT leads for an approach that takes privacy and responsible content use into account. When it comes to sensitive searches, not being targeted with ads is a huge bonus.

Does Tom’s Guide do satire now?

Totally agree. Chatgpt is at the start of the enshittification circle.

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