Google Search: AI Changes Headlines, a Challenge for Media

Google Search: A New Era for Article Titles

Since its inception in the early 2000s, Google Search has established itself as an essential pillar of the web, providing users with a reliable search experience through its famous “10 blue links.” This implicit promise reassures internet users that the site they click on is indeed the one they are looking for.

However, a major change is on the horizon. Google has begun experimenting with replacing news titles in its search results with titles generated by artificial intelligence. After testing a similar approach in its news feed Google Discover, this practice is now extending to the traditional “10 blue links.” Several instances have been observed where Google has substituted original titles with others, sometimes altering their meaning.

Shortened and Distorted Titles

A striking example of this practice is the reduction of an original title “I used the AI tool ‘cheat on everything’ and it didn’t help me cheat on anything” to a simple “AI tool ‘cheat on everything’.” This modification can give the impression that the article supports a product when it does not.

According to Google spokespersons Jennifer Kutz, Mallory De Leon, and Ned Adriance, this initiative is described as “small” and “narrow,” with no approval for a broader rollout at this time. The exact scope of this experiment remains unclear. Several members of The Verge team have noticed titles not written by them appearing in search results, failing to adhere to their editorial style.

A Worrying Analogy

In January, when Google decided to continue replacing news titles in Google Discover, it was compared to a bookstore tearing off book covers to change the titles. Writers spend a lot of time crafting titles that are both true, engaging, and interesting, without falling into clickbait. Yet, Google seems to believe that writers do not have the right to promote their work in this manner.

Changes Still Rare

For now, these title modifications appear to be rare and do not yet concern the type of content observed in Google Discover. For example, Google Discover recently indicated that the PlayStation Portal would receive a 1080p streaming mode, when it was actually a higher bitrate mode.

Compared to other misleading titles from Google Discover, such as “The U.S. reverses ban on foreign drones,” the modified titles in Google Search seem relatively harmless. However, titles like “Copilot Changes: Marketing Teams at Work” are irritating due to their style, with each word starting with a capital letter, which is not the norm at The Verge.

An Experiment That Could Expand

Although Google refers to this as an “experiment,” one should not assume that the company will not deploy this practice more widely. Google had also described its AI-generated titles in Google Discover as an experiment before integrating them as a feature, claiming they “work well for user satisfaction.”

Google has not explained why it no longer respects the title identifiers it has long encouraged. However, the company has responded to some specific questions via email, indicating that the idea is to “identify content on a page that would be a useful and relevant title for a user’s query.” The goal is to “better match titles to user queries and facilitate engagement with web content.”

A Horizontal Approach

This test “is not specific to news publications, but aims to improve titles in a horizontal manner,” according to Adriance. Google has confirmed that the test uses generative AI, but clarified that “if we were to actually launch something based on this experiment, it would not be using a generative model and we would not be creating titles with generative AI,” according to De Leon. The exact method for replacing titles without generative AI remains unexplained.

A Contested Normalization

Overall, Google’s responses attempt to normalize the idea of replacing titles in searches, suggesting that it is part of the “tens of thousands of live traffic experiments” that Google conducts to test possible improvements to Google Search. Google reminds us that it has been adjusting webpage titles in search to help users for many years.

However, this practice is not perceived as normal by everyone. After 15 years of experience in tech news editing, with a particular focus on SEO, it is unusual to see Google replace a title with another it has created itself.

Traditional Adjustments

The modifications that Google typically makes to news titles are often simpler. If Google’s algorithms deem a title too long or unbalanced, they may only display part of that title, cutting off the beginning or the end. For example, a full title like “You cannot replace the batteries of Lego's smart bricks — and many of its sensors are not yet active” may be shortened.

Similarly, if a story has two titles, one labeled as the “search title” and the other as the “page title,” Google may sometimes display the page title instead of the one designed for a more general search audience. This trend has been frustrating over the years, but it is nothing compared to an AI creating titles from scratch.

An Impact on Journalism Reliability

Modifying titles and their meanings makes journalism less reliable, especially at a time when powerful institutions are trying to discredit it, and many news organizations are struggling to survive.

For years, warnings have been issued that Google favors AI search at the expense of the “10 blue links.” Frustration is palpable when the AI search Gemini does not encourage clicks on genuine news sources. Now, even these blue links, once guarantees of a relatively unaltered experience, are being called into question.