In their magisterial survey of hypertext, Andersen and Millard (consciously echoing O'Hara and Hall's Four Hypertexts) offer seven intentionally fuzzy categories of hypertext [1]. Of these, the most germane is Hypertext as Literature or medium of expression. The multi-linear and associative structures of hypertext affordances raised numerous questions about narrative and structure:

Perhaps a key difference between hypertext as literature and hypertext as a knowledge base is that literature does not necessarily focus on clarity or understanding: embracing multiplicity of meaning, it may legitimately employ obfuscation or deception.

The aesthetics of classic hypertext fiction are rooted in the early theoretical and experimental frameworks developed during the late twentieth century (see [5, 12]. These early digital texts were characterised by their non-linear structure and active reader participation. Classic hypertext fiction emerged as a mode that challenged traditional literary form; it embraced discontinuity and multiplicity, seeing reader agency as aesthetic virtues rather than narrative liabilities. Works such as afternoon, a story and Victory Garden exemplify this approach, foregrounding links not merely as navigational devices but as poetic and rhetorical units in their own right.

The aesthetics of classic hypertext fiction often resisted visual embellishment in favour of textual depth and structural complexity. Pre-eminent tools for producing such works, such as Storyspace, prioritised functionality over graphical design, placing emphasis on the underlying architecture of nodes and links. This minimalism, while partially driven by technological constraints, also reflected a philosophical alignment with poststructuralist thought; readers were invited to explore webs of meaning in a manner analogous to Barthes's writerly text, where interpretation and construction of narrative were decentralised [7]. Consequently, the aesthetic appeal of literary hypertext was not grounded in visual spectacle, but rather in intellectual engagement and interpretive labour.

The aesthetics of such work can be seen as an extension of modernist and postmodernist traditions, which valued fragmentation, reflexivity, and the subversion of narrative closure. These works often demanded a reconfiguration of the reader's role, shifting from passive consumption to active co-authorship. The formal qualities of hypertext (intertextuality, disorientation, recursion) invited a reconsideration of textuality itself; the aesthetic experience was thus tied not only to the content of the texts but to their mode of delivery and interaction, situating classic hypertext fiction as both a literary and epistemological innovation.

Despite being the best-known instantiation of hypertext, the aesthetics of the web – emerging in the mid-1990s and rapidly evolving in the decades that followed – represented a significant departure from the textual and structural concerns of the medium to that point. As the web became more commercialised and more widely accessible, aesthetic priorities shifted towards usability and interface coherence. This transition marked the ascendancy of the graphical user interface as a primary site of aesthetic engagement, with cascading style sheets (CSS) and a complex multimedia interaction space becoming central to web presentation. Web aesthetics, in its popular form, was increasingly informed by corporate branding and standardisation, moving away from the experimental textualism of early hypertext.

This evolution brought with it a new paradigm of aesthetics rooted in clarity, consistency, immediacy. The guiding principles of web aesthetics, as embodied in phases such as Web 2.0 emphasised clean design, intuitive navigation, and responsiveness across diverse devices. Visual elements were harmonised through design systems and frameworks such as Bootstrap, which facilitated the reproduction of polished and familiar interfaces. These design choices were not merely decorative but also ideological: the hyperlink, once a symbol of associative freedom and reader agency, was frequently relegated to a functional navigational tool within hierarchical and largely linear structures.

Nevertheless, the web has also enabled new forms of visual and interactive expression, particularly through platforms that support user-generated content and social engagement. Here, aesthetics become entangled with participation and performance, giving rise to forms such as memes and glitch art, community development and the wider social media landscape. Unlike the theoretical underpinnings of classic hypertext fiction, contemporary web aesthetics are often emergent and ephemeral, driven by vernacular cultures. While visually richer and more accessible than their hypertextual predecessors, the aesthetics of the web are also more susceptible to homogenisation and algorithmic regulation, challenging earlier ideals of open-ended exploration and narrative decentralisation.

The recent integration of artificial intelligence into the web marks another significant aesthetic and epistemological shift, a phenomenon that might be described as the AI remediation of the web. This remediation is not merely technical but intrinsically cultural, altering the visual and functional texture of online experience. From recommendation algorithms to generative design, artificial intelligence reshapes our relationship with information, effectively reframing the web as an anticipatory space in which the link becomes an increasingly archaic metaphor. Different from the more static artefacts of classic hypertext, the Web adopts characteristics akin to agents, pursuing their own objectives that are not necessarily aligned with the aims of their authors and readers [2] but with their owners (see the recommender systems and chatbot agents of Amazon or Google).

AI remediation introduces a paradoxical aesthetic: one of both invisibility and hypervisibility, which might be correlated with remediation's double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy [6]. On one hand, the mechanisms of AI are hidden from the user experience, their operations concealed behind seamless interfaces. On the other hand, the outputs of these systems are increasingly dominated by visual and discursive spaces through curated content and generated visual material. The aesthetic appeal of this new web lies in its fluid adaptability: interfaces morph to user behaviour and content reshapes itself in real-time, once more blurring the line between authored and automated artefacts. This is an aesthetic strategy rooted in the now, privileging the immediate and optimised.

The AI remediation of the web raises familiar questions about authorship and agency, while also asking urgent questions about the politics of design. While earlier hypertext aesthetics celebrated decentralisation and user empowerment, the AI web tends toward centralised control and algorithmic governance. As AI systems mediate not only what is seen but also how it is valued and interpreted, the web becomes a curated experience shaped by opaque logics. Thus, the aesthetic experience is no longer a matter of interaction with designed artefacts, but a negotiation with dynamic, data-driven systems that continually reshape the conditions of visibility and knowledge.

In this first phase, Gemini is tasked with discerning which aspects of the guidelines most appropriately apply to hypertext creative works. For our experiments, we use the free version Gemini 2.0 flash and 2.5 flash experimental, available to the general public for free. We use a prompting strategy known as the Chain of Thought [17] to break down the task into smaller ones to increase precision and control, as well as collecting information about how the AI addresses each step.

We ask if the model knows the case study, "Do you know the hypertext fiction [name of the work] available at this link [url to the web version of the work]?".

Once verified that the model is aware of the work, we move to the next step. Otherwise, we refine the prompt to introduce extra context, like the author's name and year of publication.

For instance, asking about a web-native e-literature work available online – "do you know the work A Modern Ghost?" – prompts the following reply (extract of the full conversation):

I do know about the work "A Modern Ghost" listed on AltSalt.

>

[...]

>

Based on this information, I can confirm the following:

- It is a work by Artmayu Studios.

- It has received recognition and has been shortlisted for several awards:

- New Media Writing Prize 2017 (Shortlisted)

- Opening Up Digital Fiction People's Choice Award 2017 (Shortlisted)

- It is featured in the upcoming Electronic Literature Collection Volume 4 of ELO.

- It was presented in the Wordhack anthology by Babycastles Art Gallery.

- The description starts with the sentence: "Above the mirror, small and low, hung a fluorescent bulb..."

We ask Gemini to analyse the relevance of the work in light of the latest Google review and helpful content guidelines.

The prompt generates a structured answer, including a context analysis about the nature of the work, the publisher and other relevant facts. Following, Gemini describes its application of the two guidelines to the work, highlighting "potential areas for consideration" and a summary.

Following the previous example about A Modern Ghost, Gemini remarks that "its recognition suggests a certain level of quality and originality" but also that "the platform hosting it (AltSalt) should also provide a transparent and accurate representation of the work". In its summary, Gemini clarifies that "a well-crafted piece of digital literature like A Modern Ghost would likely align with the spirit of Google's helpful content guidelines by focusing on providing value to its audience through creative and engaging content".

We use the structured feedback of Gemini to compile the set of questions and general principles that will be consolidated into the critique theory we use to analyse the case studies. Gemini extracts from the guidelines questions like:

Is it created for a human audience? Given that it's a work of art, the primary purpose is likely to engage and provide an experience for a human audience. The content should be designed to be interesting, thought-provoking, or entertaining.

The critique of case studies evaluates which elements of the current iteration of web remediation contribute positively or negatively to a potential assessment, making qualitative predictions of their reception by the new version of the Google search engine.

Following the example, predictions address the type of experience and barriers to the audience. For instance, the work provides a unique experience that is a key element of this e-literature work. The accessibility of the work by an AI should be easier than a more complex hypertext work, as the reading experience is linear. A point of concern could be the heavy use of animations that, if not optimised, can slow the loading time. Similarly, the experience may not support different types of devices – it is not responsive – to its detriment. It is uncertain, however, how those positive and negative factors weigh in the final result, and if it is understood that the uniqueness of the work of art provided experience could be in the way of website performance and therefore, to be prioritised in a final evaluation.

The evaluation phase tests the predictions produced through the critique of the use cases against their actual relevance and perceived target audience (accordingly to the guidelines criteria).

The assessment makes use of a fresh Gemini session[^2] to carry out a relevance test first, followed by an audience test. The relevance text focuses on the novelty and uniqueness of the content, while the audience test focuses on the target audience already identified for the business/author and the discovery of new potential audience niches to target with the tested content or its future variations. The results of the two tests are then compared with the predictions to revise and generalise our findings into a discussion comparing the characteristics of classic hypertext against the novel Google approach to assessing web content.

[^2]: A new session is necessary to avoid the AI parroting back to us our elements from our previous conversation.

3.2.1 Relevance Test

3.2.2 Audience Test

Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson, a well-known and much-discussed hypertext fiction from 1995, belongs to the second of the three groups of early digital works. The work reimagines Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Baum's The Patchwork Girl of Oz, employing a non-linear structure to explore themes of fragmentation and identity formation. It has been ported to Storyspace 3, ships on a pendrive, and can be read on any Apple computer with modern Mac OS. As a stand-alone, and copyright-protected app, the full text of Patchwork Girl, its hypertext structure and visuals are not available online.

When asked about the work, and given the link to the publisher's site, Gemini confirmed its awareness of the nature, the genre, and the context as a "significant work of electronic literature" and a "key example of hypertext fiction". It correctly identified the work as a modern reimagining of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Frank Baum's The Patchwork Girl of Oz. It also listed out all its key aspects: non-linear narrative, intertextuality, visual elements, themes of identity and fragmentation and the cyberfeminist perspective.

In the relevance test, Gemini acknowledged the "nuanced" status of the work when it comes to its direct relevance to the latest Google review and helpful content guidelines. Firstly, because the guidelines are designed to evaluate website content, secondly, because the work's primary focus is artistic and exploratory and thirdly, because there aren't Google reviews associated with the work or with the publisher's introduction to it. However, it was able to confirm the established views on hypertext fiction as "people-first", authoritative, with original content and offering the "genuine experience" to the contemporary audience:

The enduring relevance of Patchwork Girl lies in its pioneering exploration of hypertextuality, its innovative reimagining of literary classics, and its insightful engagement with themes that continue to resonate in our increasingly digital and interconnected world. It serves as a benchmark for understanding the creative potential of digital media in storytelling, even if it doesn't directly align with the specific criteria Google uses to rank web content today.

In the second part of the test, when asked to suggest improvements in the way the work is presented to meet informational, transactional, navigational and localisation needs of the targeted audience (of hypertext scholars, digital humanists and literary critics), Gemini listed numerous aspects of the work to be explicitly mentioned. To better meet the informational needs of the audience, illustrating key concepts about the work and its historical significance was suggested. For improving transactional needs Gemini suggested providing a direct link to the work (sic!) for scholars "to engage directly with the subject of their research", to frame the text as a "transactional object" and to promote the experiential aspects of interacting with the hypertext as a form of transaction with the genre itself. Such articulated feedback provides evidence that the content of paratexts does not convincingly align with its target audience.

There were just two suggestions for improving navigational needs: to demonstrate on the work's web page the various links, maps and structural elements of the work, and to highlight "challenges and opportunities for navigating non-linear narratives" via multiple entry points. Finally, when asked to improve the "localisation" needs of users, Gemini admitted that "localisation" in the traditional sense of language or cultural adaptation is not applicable and suggested a "metaphorical" angle to the task. Here it responded in a characteristic verbal fluff: "multifaceted" nature allows Patchwork Girl to be "localised" within the diverse intellectual contexts (of individual scholars and readers).

Lastly, when prompted to suggest additional segments of users beyond the intended target, Gemini produced four possible groups: (a) Creative Writers and Storytellers, (b) Game Designers and Interactive Media Developers, (c) Educators and Students from other disciplines beyond literary studies and – another verbal fluff – (d) "Individuals Interested in the Intersection of Technology and Art". In summary, Patchwork Girl was identified as a work that could benefit those who build lore and design branching structures in video games, help understand intertextuality and visual communication, and understand reader agency and multimodality.

Richard Holeton's Figurski at Findhorn on Acid belongs to the third of the identified groups of early hypertext fictions – fully available online thanks to their online modernised editions. The work is a sprawling, satirical hypertext centred on an absurd quest for a mechanical pig. Its structure accommodates both sequential reading via an index and non-linear exploration, at the reader's discretion. Published by Eastgate Systems in 2001 on a CD-ROM with versions for Mac OS and Windows, Holeton's work was one of the last major hypertext novels created in Storyspace 2. The satirical story about Frank Figurski's quest to acquire a legendary mechanical pig is read through an orderly sequence of lexias delivered via the Navigator, a bespoke content index, or through a hop-scotch poetics of non-linear exploration of the novel's three main characters, three distinct artefacts, and three specific locations.

The web edition comes with expanded meta-commentary that includes essays by Richard Holeton and literary critic Michael Tratner (a critical essay titled "The Distinctive Quality of Holeton's Hypertext"). The link to the Introductions was given to Gemini with the same questions about relevance and audience. Very early in its evaluation of the work, Gemini revealed its inability to read Figurski... directly, even though links to the text proper were available in the Introductions. For example, after identifying that Unconventional Juxtaposition, Exploration of Contrasting Realms, and Potential for Surreal and Absurdist Narrative were unique elements of Figurski..., Gemini concluded:

The combination of these elements strongly suggests a narrative that will embrace surrealism, absurdity, and possibly dark humour. This willingness to venture into unconventional territory is a significant aspect of its originality.

This meta-reading of a contextual, sociological type (and not, for example, a close-reading type) remained consistent even after several attempts to make the model read the hypertext, just as a human would, by following links. Gemini refused to follow links in any order. During the next steps, only three elements to satisfy the informational needs of users were suggested: exploration of non-linearity, hybridity and intertextuality, and experimental narrative.

Gemini listed two transactional needs, Potential for Interactive Interpretation and Source Material for Analysis, with elaboration of the former:

"While the provided text might be linear in its presentation, the concept itself lends itself to hypertextual interpretation. Scholars might use it as a basis for exploring how such a narrative could be transformed into an interactive, multi-path experience. The text could inspire the creation of digital projects that visualise the complex relationships between the story's elements."

Similarly short and vague suggestions were presented in the transactional needs section: potential for interactive interpretation and source material for analysis ("Literary critics and digital humanists could use the text as source material for analyzing how narrative structure, character development, and thematic exploration are affected by the juxtaposition of seemingly incompatible elements"). Gemini suggested that the navigational needs of users could be met by conceptual mapping of the text and an understanding of its "narrative pathways."

Thanks to the explicit connection to a real-life location — the Findhorn community and farm in Scotland — Gemini was able to suggest not only a "metaphorical" perspective on localisation, as in the case of Patchwork Girl, but also a more historically oriented one:

"For those interested in the cultural context of the Findhorn Foundation or the history of psychedelic literature, the text provides a specific localised setting and thematic focus. The text provides a location of setting, which is a key part of localisation. The setting of the Findhorn Foundation is a very important part of the story."

Just as with Patchwork Girl, Gemini was at its most elaborate when asked to identify new segments of the audience. In this case, the range of new target groups doubled: (a) Individuals Interested in Counterculture and Psychedelic Literature, (b) Readers Interested in Spiritual and New Age Themes, (c) Technology and Digital Art Enthusiasts, (d) Philosophy and Consciousness Studies Enthusiasts, (e) Creative Writers and Storytellers, and — finally — (f) Those Interested in the History of Digital Literature.

Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl is not available online. However, when evaluated by Gemini AI for relevance to Google's "Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness" (EEAT) dimensions, Patchwork Girl was recognised as a foundational piece of electronic literature ("people-first", original, authoritative) though not directly aligned with current web content standards due to its artistic orientation and offline distribution.

Gemini's relevance testing produced insights on how the presentation of the work might be enhanced for scholars and readers by framing it as an experiential and transactional object and better visualising its structural and navigational affordances. Despite struggling with localisation in a traditional sense, Gemini suggested metaphorical localisation within scholarly contexts. It also identified broader potential audiences who might draw inspiration from its narrative mechanics and intertextual complexity.

Richard Holeton's Figurski at Findhorn on Acid (2001), by contrast, is available online in a modernised edition, complete with critical commentary. However, Gemini struggled with a lack of insight into link structure and navigation. Its greatest strength was in the identification of new audiences.

The relevance test of the two hypertexts confirmed the high scores when assessing both contents according to the EEAT. The public narrative available online represents their value built over more than two decades as well-known works and authors in the literary niche of experimental fiction. From this point of view, hypertext fiction remains a source of authentic, humanist communication, even if its original text—as is the case with Patchwork Girl—is accessible neither to AI nor to the average reader. In both cases, Gemini's recommendations for improvement focused on aligning the content structure more closely with SEO principles, algorithmic regulation and homogenised web aesthetics—an approach in direct contrast to the "thought-provoking" and "entertaining" qualities of the works themselves, which Gemini acknowledged on several occasions.

The audience test revealed the benefits of AI's remediated curatorship—particularly its ability to deliver homogenized target evaluations, whether the object is the entire work, its introduction, or even surrounding paratexts. The result is targeted suggestions that may exceed traditional scholarly or curatorial expectations. This remediated expression of the web—as an agent executing its own objectives, which may not align with those of readers or writers—is both self-serving for platforms like Gemini (driving more audience and traffic) and beneficial for the work itself, which AI situates within a "cultural niche".

In its current iteration, Gemini was not able to properly traverse a work of hypertext fiction in the sense and methodology presented by Grigar and Moulthrop [10]. When prompted to follow links—either in order of appearance or at random—to create a reading report, the model refused to cooperate. This anti-hermeneutic and anti-aesthetic mode of reading, which accumulates and summarises knowledge about a work, its historical context, and its reception, is—paradoxically—beneficial for hypertext fiction as a genre. It does not matter whether a given work has been released as a web edition with its original text fully available online and free of charge. What matters is the quality of the paratexts and the symbolic capital that a work — and its author — accumulates over time. This is good news for curators, publishers, archivists, and scholars of early digital narrative. Even without access to a work in its original form, and even without the text itself available to readers, AI can offer contemporary audiences a valuable cultural reading — provided that high-quality introductions, repository entries, and other contextual materials are available.

Extended introductions—such as those accompanying the web edition of Figurski at Findhorn on Acid (Tratner's essay, titled The Distinctive Quality of Holeton's Hypertext, being informative in its own right)—serve as essential scaffolding for AI-assisted assessments. One might assume that such a paratextual apparatus would give Gemini an advantage in evaluating Figurski. However, this assumption did not hold. Gemini's responses to prompts about Figurski were strikingly similar in scope and insight to its responses regarding Patchwork Girl – the work with full text not available online, and its sample introduction being a short entry in the ELO Repository.

While Figurski benefited from a more substantial introduction, this did not necessarily yield a broader or more refined list of key narrative elements, nor did it expand the variety of interpretive angles Gemini provided. What mattered more was the inclusion of additional contexts, such as references to psychedelic culture and countercultural movements. These elements appeared to stimulate the model's generative capacity in more creative directions, potentially attracting new, culturally curious audiences. In both cases, however, Gemini exhibited a tendency to rely on semantic fillers and list-making patterns. The model's proclivity for enumerative responses often led to a noticeable decline in quality and relevance toward the lower items on these lists.

What can today's authors learn from classic hypertext fiction to stay relevant and reach an audience?

Before 2025, website visibility was nominally related to the depth and popularity of content (albeit with some tweaking). The new Google web prioritises serving four main user intents, as defined by Google (Information, Transaction, Navigation, Localisation). Notably, aesthetic experiences and creative expression are excluded. However, the final result may still favour an early hypertext approach that weaves together structure and content into carefully crafted literature-grade works, a stark contrast to standardised websites, because those experiences cannot be remediated into conversations with AI but require direct engagement of users.

Structured and highly standardised informational websites are the favourite of the new quality guidelines. However, those very websites are the most at risk of being remediated by AI and no longer being visited by users. Hence, it seems the best chance to keep websites relevant (and recommended for direct visit by AI) is to provide unique experiences to users, hard or impossible to remediate via AI, while being automatically recognised as valuable to an audience. Nevertheless, Google is yet capable of identifying such unique experiences, as evidenced also in the second case study, hindering the findability and accessibility of those experience-focused websites.

The Web excluded Flash for technical reasons, while unique websites may be penalised – despite the accessibility-oriented web standards[^4] – as not falling into any of the four main intents and not trully compatible with the parameters of the quality ranking guidelines.

[^4]: A stack that specifically overcomes the technical challenges of Flash to search engine crawlers

Worth discussing explicitly are parameters such as speed, direct funnelling, deception and fluid navigation that in classic hypertext do not have such a negative semantics but, instead, belong in the artist's toolbox.

Speed. Loadings, puzzle solving or amazement that slow the reading to allow reflection, from Google's perspective, are signs of poor user experience.

Funnelling. Playing with users' expectations and driving them away from their initial goals, from Google's perspective, is the failure of serving users' intent.

Deception. Implicit meaning conveyed through contrast and explicit media dissonance between text, images or sound, from Google's perspective, signifies deceptive content.

Navigation fluidity. Classic hypertext narrative seeks exploration of multiple choices and alternative paths, from Google's perspective, generating disoriented users jumping back and forth.

A positive result is that Gemini is capable of going beyond the boundaries of Google's strict quality evaluation framework. For instance, during the audience tests, Gemini provided elaborate answers identifying new audiences based on intent other than Google's four, such as belongingness and spiritual consciousness of people "Interested in Counterculture and Psychedelic Literature". However, Gemini seems not to transfer the identification of those needs into a correct assessment of websites satisfying those needs through unique experiences.

Finally, can AI understand non-linear hypertext works?

Gemini's analysis of the online edition revealed significant limitations in processing the actual hypertextual structure, instead offering a sociological meta-reading. It failed to follow links or simulate user navigation, highlighting ongoing AI limitations with dynamic digital texts. Suggestions for improving informational value focused on explicating its non-linearity, hybridity, and narrative experimentation. The work's connection to the real-world Findhorn community enabled a more concrete localisation assessment, grounded in cultural and historical specificity. Gemini again made recommendations for expanding the potential audience for this work.

Google's approach to web content is quite compatible with literary hypertext (at least as far as its own AI is concerned). While sharing the challenges of indexing that plagued Flash, what material could be accessed was readily understood in its correct literary context. Indeed, the analysis went further, suggesting interested audiences and potential adaptations that would bring greater engagement without unnecessary imposition on the fundamental creative and aesthetic approach.

Worth remarking on is the 'parroting' behaviour of AI: assessing the relevance or quality of a work based on the review and description of that work that are found online, not the result of a first-hand analysis of its intrinsic characteristics. This behaviour is, in essence, akin to the old web skewed toward popularity (also known as the rich gets richer effect). AS such, AI is mostly unequipped to assess the new works and authors that lack external social recognition.