The discussion begins with Johnny_McIvor proposing a hybrid forum feature that combines traditional posts with embedded, archived chatboxes to facilitate spontaneous exchanges. patrickemin asks for existing examples, but satonotdead notes that while ‘Trollboxes’ exist on other platforms, they may be redundant on Discourse. merefield highlights that such chat features could compromise SEO, as search engines typically index static topics rather than dynamic chats. nathank suggests using the existing Event Posts functionality as a workaround.
The conversation then shifts to a broader debate about the future of SEO and AI. satonotdead argues that SEO is becoming obsolete as AI replaces web search, citing Google’s integration of AI overviews and its $60 million deal with Reddit for training data. merefield counters that SEO remains vital because AI models require novel, real-time content from human sources and lag behind current events. He argues that communities like Discourse will remain essential for genuine human interaction and fresh data. satonotdead maintains that the industry is moving toward AI-driven answers, reducing the need for direct clicks to forums, and suggests continuing the debate via private message. Heliosurge encourages keeping the discussion public and neutral. Jagster adds that Twitter’s struggles are due to leadership changes rather than SEO trends. Finally, satonotdead shares an article suggesting Google is further obscuring direct links to search results, reinforcing concerns about data centralization and the erosion of traditional web traffic.
The great thing about having a forum is that you can archive and search all of the material very easily.
However, people are turned off by forums because of the lack of spontaneous exchanges.
I suggest a hybrid alternative: users can make posts that contain chatboxes. These chatboxes have a message limit and can be easily archived.
This way, you have a mix of spontaneous exchanges and slow, well-thought-out posts.
That’s an idea. Are there some forums platforms that work like that already ?
I don’t think so.
That’s literally a 'Trollbox‘ on crypto space. Check xmrbazaar(.)com.
I don’t know if it can give value to Discourse, because there are chats, messages and topics/posts.
Should change everything to not be redundant.
I’m on the website, I can’t find any examples. What should I click on?
There is some new (still slightly unrefined) functionality to do just that with Event Posts:
Perhaps you could ask for that to be extended to all Topics?
From a moderation perspective, I think this is not a good idea.
Of course, it depends on the specific community but I see lots of potential for abuse and trolling.
Just my tuppence worth.
YouTube live streams, except that the chat is enabled when the live stream is happening. Comments are enabled after the live stream is finished.
And all that SEO is then lost to the ether.
I think the events format really makes sense but you really want people to chat about a normal post and none of that material to then be searchable on the internet?
SEO is actually being replaced by IA.
But the most effective AI uses web search? And web search uses … SEO.
You can’t only use AI without web search or you miss the last few months since the newest training data.
So SEO is still king.
In fact SEO is a blend of embeddings and keyword search. It’s been this way since well before the LLM revolution.
Google has been using embeddings for web search since 2015.
Mainstream will be published or edited by IA, SEO will be almost unexistent for humans.
Check Antitrust Division | U.S. and Plaintiff States v. Google LLC [2020] - Remedies Hearing Exhibits
The human interactions is going to be dark, meanwhile we have some spaces like Discourse, ActivityPub, Peertube.
But not organic SEO like old days (webmentions on resistance).
I don’t understand your argument.
But in any case I am still seeing significant search referrals and plenty of new sign ups.
Google remains my Top Traffic Source for the most active site I have.
In fact I think the diversification of search providers might actually help me as there will be more search options for people than Google.
In the illusion (aka reality) money is king. On our actual digital society money was on SEO, now it’s on AI.
Google is not a search app anymore, it reply literally from AI.
So if one wants to find something one needs to use SearXNG or open-source alternatives with exponential small chance of success.
I said the mainstream is going to be replaced, so it’s expected you still get SEO traffic today.
You can read the link I posted before, it’s all on it from Google itself.
What do you mean?
I understand it’s really off-topic to continue, but if you want we can discuss about it with very much pleasure via PM.
The basic idea is that people had their attention broken because social media and AI is going to the rescue for show data (dopamine) with the less effor as possible.
You see:
Nobody wants to search, then AI wins. They have already implemented AI on Bing, Google is the next.
Then you can see where is the money:
And search the rest (I kindly suggest you to use SearXNG).
I think yours is a very pessimistic take.
Why are you bothering with Discourse then?
I get that fewer people will bother with Reddit, because the interface is atrocious and the user experience is awful. Chatbot interfaces are way better than Reddit!
But AI cannot survive without novel content.
Many content providers including independent forums and news sites will be hiding more content behind paywalls and trust screens, forcing visits outside of chatbots.
AI will not have all the answers or the newest information.
It will be increasingly expensive to train new models as they get bigger and bigger and so web search tools will be the order of the day as they will always lag 6 months behind in information novelty. And where there is web search, there is SEO …
In any case people want to talk to people not bots all the time so they will still seek out the town squares.
Why are you talking to me if your ChatGPT account suffices?
I insist to continue via PM and it’s better to take a neutral approach without any personal takes.
I understand my point of view as real, not pessimistic, not possitive. Just as is on reality, without sentiments involved.
Because Discourse is not OpenAI, Gemini or SEO.
They already have all the data they need. Why to continue looking for human interactions when they got ~20 years and everyone is paying for instant replies?
All the links shows you a different information that you would take in consideration if you have really interest on it.
I have no interest debating this in a PM. We can agree to disagree.
