Google is now testing a new idea: instead of displaying the article title as written by its authors, AI rewrites it in its own way before appearing in search results.

The company confirmed the news to The Verge, saying the experiment is 'small and limited' so far, with the goal of making titles closer to what users search for and more clickable.

What does this look like in practice?

For example, an article with a sarcastic, long title like: 'I Tried the AI Tool That Cheats at Everything, and It Didn't Help Me Cheat at Anything'... Google shortens it to: 'AI Tool for Cheating at Everything'.

The result? The original title was clever and sarcastic, while the new one comes across as superficial and soulless.

Sean Hollister from The Verge said bluntly that this is 'like a bookstore removing book covers and changing their titles before displaying them to customers.' Writers spend a long time crafting accurate, compelling, and honest titles, and Google comes along and replaces them with the click of a button.

Louisa Fram, SEO director at ESPN, added that the title is the first thing a reader sees and carries the brand's voice; if it changes or is misunderstood, you lose your audience's trust over time.

Will the experiment expand?

Google says 'no' for now, but The Verge reminds that the Discover feature started with the same rhetoric before becoming a permanent feature. History is not very reassuring.

In the end, news sites already suffer from declining traffic from Google, and if this experiment continues, it will add a new problem on top of existing ones.

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