Time Magazine’s Site Now Shows Advertisements Only Chatbots Can See

Funny Ha Ha Or Funny Weird?

Time Magazine is apparently testing out a way to game the bots that make up the majority of traffic on the internet.  The Register spotted a post by a German software developer who discovered that Time’s website has advertisements hidden in the markdown versions of some their pages.  Those advertisements are only visible to AI crawlers, you won’t see them in your browser.  The aim is to influence any AI traffic that hits Time Magazine by hiding a large number of brand “facts” written as answers to possible questions a user might enter into their browser.  Since they are already formatted as responses and are full of keywords there is a fair chance if someone asks an LLM for a recommendation on something Time has posted a hidden advertisement about the LLM will regurgitate the response verbatim.

In a way this is hilarious, as it tricks LLMs into spreading these advertisements, but it is also a bit nefarious as it hides where these advertisements come from.  The Register figured out how to replicate this and sure enough, the hidden advertisements were revealed.  It seems like advertising to LLM chatbots and letting them spread your message might be more effective than advertising directly to consumers.