Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized

Shopify's website has 60 different "10 best products for X in 2026" lists — and they all rank Shopify #1. Clickup says hold my beer: It has almost *300* such lists. Gift link to my story today about the strange new ways people are gaming AI search results: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Shopify has published at least 60 rankings of the best e-commerce sites—all of which have Shopify as the top pick. Why? It's seemingly an attempt to game AI search tools. Great one by @willoremus.com on the dark arts of search engine sloptimization www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Your search results are getting sloptimized www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Sorry for the typo but at least I'm not an AI! Here's a gift link to my latest for @theatlantic.com on how the web is now being written not just by machines but also for machines. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Bad content drives out good. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Gift link. Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized How companies are gaming the chatbot internet www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Whoa, hot post on The Atlantic today. Both Google and OpenAI should pay attention. We know Google is already at work on that front, but OpenAI should be too -> Your AI Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized - How companies are gaming the chatbot internet

“Reddit was the second-most-cited domain by ChatGPT, trailing only Wikipedia, and the third-most-cited by Google. Last year, Shotland connected online with a man who said he could marshal thousands of mercenary Reddit accounts for a modest fee.” www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

We’re not just threatened by AI writing, but also AI reading. The web is gradually being rewritten to cater ever less to human eyes, and ever more to LLM ones. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

"Sloptimization is a symptom of an internet that was built to connect humans but now more often connects machines. Much of the text online is already AI-written, and now people are generating content that is primarily created for bots to read." www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

It's guaranteed to be a bottom-of-the-barrel bad from the beginning, with an endless loop of fraud/sloptimization. It's already happening.

used to write seo blogs for companies so they ranked higher in search as one of a billion side jobs and this feels like the evolution in the ai era www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Sloptimization https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/06/google-search-ai-optimization/687495/

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“He has no interest in getting his recipes noticed by chatbots, which he said will either steal them or, worse, mangle them by mixing in bits of someone else’s recipe. “We feel as though the rug has been pulled out from underneath us completely,” he said. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2... #tech #ai #slop

How shopping sites "optimize" their presence with AI systems like ChatGPT. They do things like create bogus "Best Of xxx" articles showing themselves at the top of whatever it is you're searching for, e.g., "Best jockstraps," or "Best armadillo repellent." www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

GES: Generative-Engine Sloptimization www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

I knew it was only a matter of time before AI chatbots would turn in to salesbots www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

google's optimizing search results for geo locations now. same problem as seo but worse because it'll shape what we see on our screens {https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/06/google-search-ai-optimization/687495?gift=j9r7avb6p-KY8... https://kottke.org/26/06/0049116-your-search-results-are-g

Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized - The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

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The Internet will be sloptimized

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Your search results are getting sloptimized https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/06/google-search-ai-optimization/687495/?utm_source=feed

Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/06/google-search-ai-optimization/687495/ How companies are gaming the chatbot internet

Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized - The Atlantic

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2... Because AI tools serve you answers instead of sending you to other sites, they choke off clicks to the rest of the web. When a Google search triggers an AI response, other sites get about half the traffic of a traditional search result

This is not just a trend but an indicator of how the entire operations of the Internet is shifting as a result of the introduction of this new technology to its ecosystem. ↩ thought-police

BLUF: Now chatbots are cannibalizing the traditional search engine. ... The next phase, Google and others have said, will be AI search “agents” that not only seek out information on behalf of users but act on it—drafting summary reports, booking reservations, and making purchases.

Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized ->The Atlantic | More on "AI search results manipulation tactics" at BigEarthData.ai