December 2023 Google Search Observations

[Martin Ice Web]

After 3 very good weeks we see a 50% drop for all sites we manage started right at midnight. Seems google started Xmas shopping revenue season.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:39 am (utc) on Dec 1, 2023]
[edit reason] split cleanup - New month, new thread [/edit]

[ami3810]

From a user perspective, it feels like we are being pushed more and more towards AI. Because hell, I don't remember when was the last time the SERPs gave me better value than an AI and I usually just go to ChatGPT now to find the information I need because it is faster, more efficient and in most cases - more comprehensive, easier to understand and more accurate. Just googling it doesn't work anymore. From my side it seems as if Google is trying to get the last penny out from a dying horse and push its Gemini with Bard. And Bard is also horrid.

[Conro]

@ami3810 Bing use ChatGPT4 and is free. Have many function included the description of Images. The same of Gemini (of the video fake)

[superclown2]

From my side it seems as if Google is trying to get the last penny out from a dying horse and push its Gemini with Bard. And Bard is also horrid.

I don't know anyone who uses Bard, They even had to fake the Gemini video [bbc.com ] in an attempt to raise interest. ChatGPT is leaving them in their wake.

Yes they are using AI to maximise profits but (again, as the trial results show) there is a divide between the search team who want to produce better results and the advertising people who need to satisfy Wall Street with ever increasing profits. Guess who is winning? This is why the results are so bad for serious searches.

Mobile results here are particularly awful; the mass of 'People Also' type boxes, ads and ad filled videos are making it impossible to find answers to anything but the simplest queries. For the first time in years I am getting more hits from desktop than mobile for many search terms; this is because on a desktop with a decent sized screen people can actually see my pages amongst all the ad spam, but on mobile they are completely buried.

I am more and more seeing no organics at all on mobile that are above the PAA, PASF and other spam. So, even those with the very best answers to queries (as decided by Google of course) are unlikely to see much, if any, business.

Plus I see more ads that contain multiple boxes that look like separate search results but are not. Is this legal? Yes. Ethical? No. Next year Google will be regulated over here by the Competition and Marketing Authority. If they are as strict on ethics as the Financial Conduct Authority Google could be in trouble. Until then things are highly unlikely to improve IMO.

next time you tell someone to "google it", remember that you're branding these a**holes...

I still hoover my carpet with a Dyson. After a series of unethical promotions Hoover, which was once one of the most trusted brands in the world, went spectacularly insolvent in 1995. Perhaps we will still 'google it' on Bing, Ecosia, or other search engines yet to appear in the future.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Wow. Now that is hilarious. I had no idea about the Gemini video but shows how useless Google is in general. Can't get their SERPs right, fail to provide good customer satisfaction and fail at AI too. Haha! I'll admit I have used ChatGPT several times both for a few articles and I notice it a lot on sites such as Quora. It is both informative and easy to use. I'd never personally touch Bard or anything G release. But by the sounds of it I'm not missing out.

Also, I'm currently adding content to both my Youtube and website. Usually its just Youtube now but I have a writer still and decided to test my luck with the website traffic. Currently only one platform is gaining from the additional content, guess which one.. Really it does not take a genius to work that one out. Also, no its not because of the SERPs. The majority of the traffic comes from Youtube Search itself. Maybe people are actually noticing how garbage the SERPs are after all? At least in my niche they are.

[christianz]

Currently only one platform is gaining from the additional content, guess which one..

lol. I know. The self-dealing, self-preferencing of stuffing YouTube videos all over web search is really nauseating.

The YouTube search is terrible too. It's only better in sense that when you search for a video in YouTube you are not presented with junk widgets, web results, PAA etc. At least you are getting the type of content you are looking for - video. The problem is that you get very few real results. Maybe 5. After that it's useless, annoying recommendations, Shorts brain rot, "videos you already watched" (it's not a joke!) etc.

Filters are also heavily dumbed down - you can't get latest videos, for example. This is for censorship purposes. Other crappy big tech platforms are doing the same, of course.

And, of course, just like web, YouTube implements the policy of "boosting authority content", which means only giving fair traffic to large corporations with which Google has some sort of covert business relationship, and shafting all independent creators.

I don't remember what was your niche Fluff, but if it was pets, be prepared for "F**bes Pets" or "TimesOfI**** Cats&Dogs Edition" to take all traffic any time soon. Especially when partial AI generation of video content will improve.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Not really up to date on AI video. Looked into it a bit just now and saw that is mainly involves very basic features. It will be interesting to see what it turns into as it grows. If it has the potential to rip actual video content outside of simple AI avatars and text to speech then yeah, it could be worrying.

Also, I'm just happy that most of the Youtube traffic is from Youtube search and not Google. But, as you said, that is most likely down to the site not having other garbage such as PAA and other toxic ads. Makes me worry if anything could be implemented in the future. But I have been on Youtube for over 10 yrs and nothing really major has hit it. You would have thought it would have by now. Only real potential danger is AI but I would assume it would be much more limited in capabilities.

Whilst I also agree with the 'boosting of authority content'. Videos is still a much easier platform with less competition. I even read that Youtube still recommend and help smaller channels too. So overall its great for growth still. I think that is also my problem. There is too much competition on SERPs. Most copy paste or, now, use AI. There is barely any breathing room. Let alone the G adds too. So growth is very limited.

You have valid points but I really hope Youtube does not change much from what it is now. It's all I have left ha!

[RubicCubed]

At least you are getting the type of content you are looking for - video. The problem is that you get very few real results.

The problem that follows is an ad every 2-3 minutes in a 15 minute video, with some of the ads appearing to be as long as the video itself. Just like Google search, I find Youtube also frustratingly unusable because of excessive ad spam. Those who watch the videos will likely end up with carpal tunnel syndrome from having to click the ad skip option (when available) so often. All the CEO of Alphabet, and its underlying companies, knows how to do is spam ads and lie to the public like they did in that fraudulent/deceptive Gemini video.

[RedBar]

Have I missed a couple of weeks? Is it already Xmas Day_______________My traffic levels across all sites tell me it is!

[ichthyous]

From a user perspective, it feels like we are being pushed more and more towards AI. Because hell, I don't remember when was the last time the SERPs gave me better value than an AI and I usually just go to ChatGPT now to find the information I need because it is faster, more efficient and in most cases - more comprehensive, easier to understand and more accurate. Just googling it doesn't work anymore...

Most people still want to use search and not to have to go to chatGPT as it's not that quick of a process and it is also riddled with inaccuracies, at least when i have used it. Google is between a rock and a hard place...shareholders demand that the stock price increases and that the company appears to be competing and winning with the other tech companies. So Google is forced to canibalize the quality of search and force more revenue generation through pushing ads and degrading organic. But this is also the reason why more people are fleeing...they don't want to be served ads and terrible results. Google is playing for time with AI...it needs to replace the old search model with something that produces at least as much and more revenue. I would not count out Google at all...they have plenty of resources to pull off a competitor to ChatGPT no doubt at all in my mind. In the end will AI really be the huge revenue producer that they are all hoping? Meta, MS, OpenAI, Google, Apple, Amazon, Baidu, and everyone else in the world will soon have their own AI platforms so the pie will be split.

[ichthyous]

Traffic seems to be stabilizing this weekend, even though I have been steadily losing top 3 and top 10 results for two months now. I have lost 9% of my top 10 ranking terms and 11% of my top 3 ranking terms on desktop...yet traffic is better than when I was ranking higher. I have also seen some of my long-standing high ranking terms drop from #2/#3 to #/5-#7 and stay there this month. It seems that "local" service providers are being given a boost, even though most of them are not local at all, just mega sites with localized cookie cutter pages for every imaginable locality.

[Shepherd]

shows how useless Google is in general

Credit where credit is due, I personally think google is doing an amazing job with YouTube TV...

Everything, EVERYTHING else, absolute rubbish.

[Micha]

News traffic has increased significantly (+69 per cent yesterday), and today is off to a good start. It seems that Google has turned the screws again. Sistrix also shows a clear improvement. Let's see how long this lasts.

[superclown2]

Business is falling for us day by day but it's nearly Christmas so that's expected. However the last year has produced the lowest number of clicks on our sites for more than a decade, despite huge effort and investment. This is not down to fair competition since most of the people who competed with us in the past have gone out of business; as we all know it is almost all a result of Google's manipulation of ads and googlespam to push organic results out of sight.

We are hanging on in the hope that Europe and the UK will regulate Google properly but we have little faith in the USA, where massive sums are spent on 'lobbying' . However we shall wait and see.

In the meanwhile we have decided to optimise all our sites for desktop, and concentrate on business products and services where our target visitors are less likely to search on mobile. There is so much googlespam on Android now that sometimes I can't even find our sites myself. In many ways it feels like 2010 all over again.

next time you tell someone to "google it", remember that you're branding these a**holes...

There are dangers to Google in this. Their trade mark could become generic, like hoover, aspirin, cellophane, band aid and many others. No you can't use the word 'google' as part of your tradename but advertising "google it on newupstartsearchengine.com' could be an entirely different matter. Just a thought!

[Treud]

I feel too this downward trend since early December. The impressions are going down means I’m pushed behind all the crap Google is pushing on top of pages.

Also with all the AI request widgets I’m wandering if someone will find a way to cheese the system…

[Conro]

I still can’t understand the point of a search engine like Google that instead of finding sites that answer a query, shows you as the first result ‘people also asked’ and immediately after ‘people also searched for’. This is garbage, not a search engine.

[BigKat]

I still can’t understand the point of a search engine like Google that instead of finding sites that answer a query, shows you as the first result ‘people also asked’ and immediately after ‘people also searched for’.

@Conro
Spend some time reading the court documents being released to the public and you will have a better understanding. The PAA and PASF boxes are what Google calls "refinements" to get users to generate more queries. Google does this because the top of most queries are loaded with ads. These refinements are only part of Google's self-described "engagement hacking" techniques which are designed to maximize the monetization of each user by not answering their queries. Below is a link to the document where Google describes this in their own words.

We could increase queries quite easily in the short term in user negative ways (turn off spell correction, turn off ranking improvements, place refinements all over the page). If we, as a company, want to go there we should discuss that. It is possible that there are trade offs here between different kinds of user negativity caused by engagement hacking.

Quoted court document: [justice.gov...]

[mhansen]

I still can’t understand the point of a search engine like Google that instead of finding sites that answer a query, shows you as the first result ‘people also asked’ and immediately after ‘people also searched for’. This is garbage, not a search engine.

Google.com is no longer a search engine. It's a destination portal, being reworked daily to answer 100% of all queries without leaving and supporting those who feed it data.

Chrome is no longer a web browser. It's a personal assistant with tools and widgets slowly being baked into the browser, that eliminate the need for users to use 3rd party websites. (See latest Chrome update with deal finder, discount code tool, etc)

[ichthyous]

Another big drop in traffic today...USA -36% at 2pm. UK, Germany, Canada, Australia and UAE all down 10%-18%.

Also seeing a continual decline in top 3 and top 10 ranked terms. I've seen this movie before...your top ranked terms just drop off in a slow decline for months ending in a 15-20% loss. Then 6-12 months later they can start to climb again just as mysteriously. There's nothing anyone can do about it as it's a shift in which types of sites are being favored and that's it. I'll expect a lower 1st half of 2024 for sure, although really it has been two months already.

Interestingly, I've had four inquiries in a row since last night...typical of Google when it lets the traffic flow for about 12 hours before an update

[StoneSolid]

I didn't do it for a LONG time but last few days I checked google ranks for my sites and I used VPN so that I get USA based results...

It was honestly a 100% scary experience, as some have mentioned before. There is everything on google search results except actual search results (as in - site listings).
Search results pages look more like a spammy webshop with lots of ads than actual search results.

Funnily enough, if I was to build my website pages as google search results, I would probably get like 10 algo penalties and vanish from search all together.

Don't even know how to tackle such internet monopolization.

[Razorllama]

Lots of position drops here - not to other sites, but to the numerous widgets, YouTube thumbnail, PAA and other 'features'.

Of course, this translates into a -18% week on week. On some of these queries, I'm not seeing a legit site until well down into pos 7-8.

In 3 months Google managed to do a few years' worth of carnage. Personally, I'm already swapping to doing this part-time/as a side gig and looking for more standard employment opportunities from February onwards. It's been enough.

[insideout]

Complete destruction. My main website lost 80% of its traffic in a matter of days. I have no clue what to do to recover from this massacre :(

[superclown2]

Complete destruction. My main website lost 80% of its traffic in a matter of days.

Here is an example to show how it has happened:

For my main search term this morning on mobile the first organic result effectively comes in 8th position thanks to multi slot ads, 'normal' ads, PAA, ASF, PASF. The results were:

sponsored + 3 links under, each in their own slot and looking like separate results
sponsored
sponsored
sponsored
generic
PAA
generic
generic
sponsored
generic
Also Searched For
generic
generic
generic
Youtube (full of ads of course)
Youtube (full of ads of course)
Youtube (full of ads of course)
Also Searched For
Sponsored Plus Five Links Under, each in their own slot and looking like separate results
People Also Search For
Sponsored
Sponsored

So: out of 30 slots (I am being generous in calling the PAA, ASF, and PASF just single slots) there are just seven organic results; less than a quarter of the total.

I should also point out that YouTube results are completely useless for the type of query that I typed in so it is obvious why they were included: to show more ads, and hide the organics better.

How much longer can this go on until legislators and the public realise that, as we keep pointing out, Google is no longer a search engine?

[System]

The following message was cut out to new thread by engine. New thread at: goog/5098667.htm [webmasterworld.com]
9:11 am on Dec 12, 2023 (utc 0)

[Martin Ice Web]

We are still stable in traffic, Yesterday eas in fact the best (traffic) day. Traffic quality on the other side is a rolercoaster. Periods of engaged traffic following periods of rubbish traffic. Sales are quiet ok for this time ( we are not in Xmax shopping).
I hope that the sitewide changes we started last year are now start to carrying fruits.

We noticed that we got many direct hits from google 66.249.88 with Lighthouse engine. Anybody else seeing direct hits from this IP. We are not sure if it is a scraper using google proxy or if it is google itself. But one could say that google should reconigze proxy abuse?

[saladtosser]

Hoping for a new serp feature 2024 PAHFB (People also had for breakfast)!

[RubicCubed]

Hoping for a new serp feature 2024

The new feature will likely be "Ads people also clicked."

[RedBar]

After 12 hours of my Googleday both my global site and main UK site were at 20% traffic levels, I have some sites getting hardly any traffic whatsoever, the bots I can see, realworld visitors are simply not there, all rankings appear to be ok therefore what are realworld traffic levels insofar as my "stuff" is concerned?

How come no one is reporting a massive increase in traffic / rankings / everything?

Does Google actually believe that it is going to convert so many of us into advertisers with all its attempted manipulation?

[Micha]

I bet soon a popup will appear asking you to click on two ads before you get the search results.

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today...

[Fluff_Nutz]

Can only echo everyone else. Despite having my writer post new content I am now -30% over last week. Meaning I gained zer0 growth from these new articles and wasted more time and effort into the site. Let alone money too. It really is pointless..

[RedBar]

It really is pointless..

And here is the conundrum ... If G pi$$es-off so many creators and they stop uploading, from where will its AI get to "learn / steal / thieve / scrape"?

Or has G gone completely past this point now and is solely a dedicated advertising platform? Yes, we know it's been like this for ages however has G decided that "organising the world's information" is no longer a prerequisite to exist?

[mhansen]

It really is pointless..

On my site, I have 300+ pages of technical, long form content that did very well until the HCU. (+200k monthly users) I also have 50 or so pages of technical "tools" that have increased in exposure exponentially since HCU, where they were not as popular before. These are my focus now and the long form content is all but forgotten since it continues to drop in G every day.

I'm considering leaving the long form content, leaving all links to it on the site, etc - but adding a "noindex, follow" clause to that /directory/ only for Googlebot. I want this content removed from their index if they don't feel it's worthy of visitors, and mainly because I also don't want it used to train the AI tools any longer and be presented as SGE content. I do still get good traffic from other engines to these long form content pages, so I'll leave it open for them to index.

Outside of the obvious, what are my risks?

[ichthyous]

I bet soon a popup will appear asking you to click on two ads before you get the search results.

@micha don't give them any smart ideas!

[ichthyous]

And here is the conundrum ... If G pi$$es-off so many creators and they stop uploading, from where will its AI get to "learn / steal / thieve / scrape"?

This was discussed here over the past couple of months. Many of us are already blocking all of the AI bots from scraping. I see no benefit to myself in letting any AI platform rake in the profits by including my work in the dataset. In fact I see a much much more profitable path suing the platforms for having scraped my content already without my permission. Even if they settle its bound to be a lot more money than they will ever pay out through any kind of royalty / payment scheme, which will inevitably pay the legal copyright holders a pittance just to shut them up.

I have already spoken with my attorney about it and we are just waiting to see how the first lawsuits pan out...if the courts are favorable to creator rights I intend to pile right on. They will be forced to share the profits one way or another or be buried in lawsuits. That is what is coming, at least for any platform based in any country party to the Berne Convention.

[BlueEyes82]

All sites that have hit me since the "helpful" update in September have been lost with every update since then. The situation is similar for the competitors who were also affected in September. Neither side has been able to recover so far, although one or two have made major changes.

I also rebuilt one of the pages a lot, initially there were no more losses since September, but with this update -30%.

Unfortunately, I don't know what to do - I haven't experienced anything like this in 15 years. Does anyone feel the same way?

[mhansen]

This was discussed here over the past couple of months. Many of us are already blocking all of the AI bots from scraping. I see no benefit to myself in letting any AI platform rake in the profits by including my work in the dataset.

The bad part of this, is Google stated that unless you block Googlebot completely, SGE will continue to digest your content and use it in SGE results whether we like it or not.

Search engine land [searchengineland.com]

[Conro]

Googlebot can ignore robots.txt. A class Action is the solution

[mosxu]

Anyone, the mascarade at Capitol Hill is going to bring no hope!

There is no evidence that what I see on a device someone else also sees on his/her device when searching for the same keyword and provided behind there is a high enough bid or a long ranked established ranking!

Forget the ranking tools for one second…

[superclown2]

That is what is coming, at least for any platform based in any country party to the Berne Convention.

Right from the very start Google trampled over copyright and privacy laws. They have continued pushing the envelope since then.

I suppose there are good reasons why law enforcement agencies in the USA have ignored this but the term 'lobbying' keeps coming to mind. Hopefully it can, at long last, be challenged. Having lost their first major case in the USA courts there is hope that others will be successful too.

In the meanwhile; yesterday we had one of the best days for years, for a particular product, despite the worst one for years the day before! The reason; very little Googlespam on Chrome for the second half of the day (we've pretty well given up on Android) whereas the day before our site was buried under the usual junk. It's still very early morning here today but the Chrome SERPs are looking fairly uncluttered so here's hoping.

If only they would go back to being a search engine again! They could then deserve a monopoly on merit and look forward to a long term future instead of the risk of being crushed by lawsuits and legislation (ah well, back to the real world).

[RubicCubed]

I see no benefit to myself in letting any AI platform rake in the profits by including my work in the dataset.

We see the same lack of benefits (hardly any traffic) from appearing in Google search now, which is getting worse every month. So long as there are a couple competing pages for the same query, Google doesn't need anyone else's content because Google is going to surround it in ads anyway to direct clicks to the ads and not non-paying sites.

[RedBar]

OMG, I had the greatest misfortune cum eye-opener last night!

I was given a new Android tablet to try-out therefore went straight to Chrome and tried some of my keyword phrases ... What an utter mess of garbage was attempted to be displayed. Is this what Joe Public, bearing in mind it's Android, is seeing on an everyday basis on all their Android devices?

As a website experience the search results were an horrendous mess. Does anyone at The Plex even check its own product. I guess not since if they were to then heads rightly would roll.

BTW, otherwise the tablet was quite impressive.

[ichthyous]

A sad example of how Google can make all your traffic vanish almost overnight, even when you are still ranking at the top! My ranking for this category is basically the same as before (up/down one spot on a daily basis). Yet from ~ Nov. 6th onward most of the traffic has vanished from the highest converting category on my website. I haven't used Google analytics for the last couple of years, but I do think that Google can still analyze and see which traffic will cause maximum pain if the traffic is removed. It is psychological warfare, plain and simple. It might be another year or more before traffic returns to this category and meanwhile many fewer sales for me...

[ibb.co ]

[BigKat]

It might be another year or more before traffic returns to this category

You're a heck of a lot more optimistic than I. I expect organic results to almost completely dry up in 2024 as AI/SGE becomes a larger part of search to feed Google's growing appetite for profits. Even if AI/SGE doesn't completely takeover the SERPS, Google will always be under constant pressure to produce higher profits from the quarter before. Instead of four ads above the fold I see now, we may see six or eight ads followed by Google's refinement gimmicks. I see nothing to be optimistic about except the slowly growing traffic we get from other SEs. But these other SEs will likely also follow Google's template in abusing their search results like Google has.

[ichthyous]

I see nothing to be optimistic about except the slowly growing traffic we get from other SEs. But these other SEs will likely also follow Google's template in abusing their search results like Google has.

I can see how AI would be an opportunity for google to slip in ads into the AI results while not citing any organic links/sources. I hadn't thought about it, but it would not be out of the realm of possibility considering how hostile Google has become to organic. The only thing is this...if Google did that we would all just block Googlebot completely and then the company would have nothing to base it's search on nor feed the AI dataset. I am not seeing any traffic coming in from any AI related platform yet...not ChatGPT, and no increase in Bing AI assisted searches.

And you are right that they all follow Google's lead and will all monetize in the same way...the only solution is a publicly funded search engine, but that almost immediately becomes a hot potato with all of the conspiracy theorists and accusations of political favoritism.

[Fluff_Nutz]

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Despite my site being +20% now. Yes, traffic increased, but because its so unstable and unreliable, I'm not exactly celebrating about it. I just feel sorry for those that lived on the revenue from their sites for years and depended on it for bills and upkeep. I was going to be one of those I'll admit but I guess I'm fortunate to, now, whilst still early in the game, realize life is not quite that simple after all.

[Micha]

AI search will certainly hurt websites, but let's think about it a little further: Google and co. are not only destroying websites or companies that run websites with their behavior, but also the industries behind them. If companies see that hardly any visitors/buyers are coming to their website, they will think twice about hiring an SEO or web designer. Every online business that closes hurts wholesalers, because Amazon isn't everything. The list could go on and on.

There are simply more small businesses than large ones, and if Google and co. overdo it here, there will inevitably be a very strong headwind, because then the right places will realize that search engines are more than simple "portals" and they will have to intervene. (Even if half the web will probably be extinct by then)

[Conro]

I'm noticing more and more websites getting updated less frequently. Sites that used to publish three articles per day, now release two articles per week. These are clearly well-made sites that have undeservedly experienced a decline in visits. The serp of Google is only garbage, months of updates for have in 1 position 4 ads, many "people also ask", "people also search" and now "They often search as well".

[RubicCubed]

I'm noticing more and more websites getting updated less frequently. Sites that used to publish three articles per day, now release two articles per week.

The current environment is only profitable for those who pump Google's index full of massive quantities of auto-generated/AI spam. We need to realize Google abandoned all of us, and we can't wait for Google to return because this show is coming to an end.

[waynne]

History is just repeating itself. I ran a successful and popular photoblog. Search engines then starting showing my images in their photo search results and stopped sending traffic to my sites. Without the traffic I am unable to make any revenue from it so I stopped uploading images and let the site die quietly. The result is that search engines no longer have any fresh images from me and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, so the end result is that the end user has suffered.

Now we have search engines and AI showing our scraped (reworked, plagiarised etc...) content to visitors, which once again will kill traffic to our sites and we will have no traffic to speak of so will stop creating content. Whinging about this will not help or solve the inherent problem which is the evolution of the internet and internet users.

But I guess AI will continue to create all the content people need, until the sources of fresh information dry up and it has to start inventing facts (I can't imagine an AI inventing facts though can you lol). Eventually I see a future where people will talk to an assistant to get all the information they need, which will reduce the need for people to use search at all.

I see this as the great cycle of life, it makes sense that the internet evolves and those that use it will change, and we have to adapt with it and move on. Expecting Google to show our sites in search will not adjust the move away from users going to informational websites.

The question is WHAT CAN I OFFER THAT AN AI CAN'T? Focus on that and you'll be fine. I'm sure that search engines are seeing cash cows like search drying up and are trying hard to retain revenue further squeezing the publisher.

I have blocked AI bots from crawling all of my sites, but I can't stop the plagiarists who steal my content and publish it under their own name who no doubt have a short sighted quick buck philosophy and allow "their content" to be crawled and indexed.

[rdscx]

But I guess AI will continue to create all the content people need, until the sources of fresh information dry up and it has to start inventing facts (I can't imagine an AI inventing facts though can you lol).

AI inventing things is actually the biggest problem of LLM (Large Language Models, like ChatGPT). It's called "hallucinations" and it's something unavoidable at this point (given the way LLMs work, it will never be solved in the near future).