Technology changes so fast, it is hard to keep up with it.
The advent of AI tools like ChatGPT is a prime example. Since becoming widely available in the past year, it has taken the world by storm. Finally, a tool that will help generate content quickly and professionally. What a great time saver!
Alas, if only it didn’t come with any downsides.
The Truth About AI-Generated Content
Though AI has come a long way, it is still not human.
AI develops content by the user providing a list of “keywords” they want the article to be about. The AI then searches the internet, piecing together content based on those keywords. There is no original content provided. Obviously, this is a simplification of a vastly complicated process. If you want more details, you may want to review “Pros and Cons of AI-Generated Content”.
The two main problems are that AI is not human and the content is not original.
AI-generated content is limited to the information it has been given or can research. The AI simply organizes available information in what seems to be a reasonable order and spits it out for the consumer.
Recent algorithmic changes at Google have been implemented to put an even greater focus on the quality of the information being provided. Search engines are always looking for information that adds to the consumer’s knowledge or understanding of a given subject.
As AI-generated content is nothing but a quilt work of information already on the Internet, no additional value is given.
Does Google Identify AI-Generated Content as Spam?
There are many sites that say Google considers AI-generated content to be spam and treats it as such. That is partially correct.
Google can’t tell AI-generated content from human-generated content with complete certainty. Neither can the so-called AI generator detectors. What each does is analyze sentence structure, syntax, word repetition and flow, then using an algorithm (irony anyone?) it “decides” the probability the sentence, paragraph, or page was written by a human or generated by AI. Even if a page is “determined” to be AI-generated, Google will allow it providing it consists of good, high-value information.
What is correct is that Google will penalize pages that show an excess level of poor or low-value content, such as that frequently found in AI-generated content and will either give it less value or even fail to index it entirely.
Better said by Google Search Advocate John Mueller, “It’s still against the Webmaster Guidelines. So we would consider that to be spam.”
Is SEO Affected?
If you aren’t already aware of the basics, we suggest you review our previous article “SEO 101”.
At a high level, your ability to get high rankings are based on how Google perceives the information you are providing. If the information is perceived as poor quality, you will be pushed farther down the results provided or the page won’t even be indexed and will never show up in search results. Clearly, either result directly impacts your SEO investment.
What do we do?
It is our policy that AI-generated content is not acceptable in our SEO blogs or website content.
At Top Roof Marketing, we write over 300 original, custom blogs for our SEO clients every month and publish dozens of webpages on a regular basis. With this level of content development, we monitor technology carefully. Understanding what is available to support our writers, while still providing our clients with the highest quality content possible, is simply good business.
Instead of using AI-generated content, our team of writers optimize the content with things Google looks for. Things like adding alt-text to all images, the use of internal and external linking, and other techniques that may be more labor-intensive but provide a higher return on investment for our clients. This clearly works as many of our clients are on the 1st page of Google 100+ times for multiple cities they target. We would be happy to show you proof!
To learn more about the impact AI-generated content may have on your SEO, or about the ways we help clients get on the 1st page of Google for dozens of different keywords, call us today at 800-795-2187 or complete one of our inquiry forms and we would be delighted to speak with you further.
By the way, this was 100% written by a human being!
