Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a very hot topic lately, especially since ChatGPT was released on November 30th. Microsoft Bing plans to add ChatGPT to search. Some question whether this is the Google killer.
Today, there are a growing number of examples of brands using AI-generated content. Bankrate is the latest example. Some of the content is written by machines, but reviewed by human editors.
This is a bold strategy (let’s see if it pays off). And the SEO community wanted to know Google’s policy on these efforts.
Bank rate example. This example was highlighted by Tony Hill. Posted On Twitter, “BankRate.com, one of the largest financial sites on the web, has started using AI to create some of its content. A significant moment in web publishing and SEO.”
The screenshot reads, “This article was generated using automated technology and was thoroughly edited and fact-checked by editors on our editorial staff.”
Curious how Bankrate.com ranks in these articles? Sistrix conducted an analysis to find out:
For Bankrate.com, for this particular use case and at this point in time, I can say yes, it works.
A number of randomly checked articles rank first page for both the main keyword and many other long tail keywords“How Bankrate.com uses AI-generated text to rank” – Johannes Beus, SISTRIX
Bank rates are not the only example of this. CreditCards.com also uses AI-generated content. The first line on the CreditCards.com team’s author page reads, “The content published on this author’s byline is generated using automated technology.”
CNET has also been quietly using AI to create entire articles from scratch since November.
Do a Google Site Search [“This article was generated using automation technology”] A large number of CNET articles appear in Google’s index. CNET also assures readers that these articles are “thoroughly edited and fact-checked by editors on our editorial staff.”
potential problem. If you can let machines and AI create your content, the amount of content you can create at incredibly low cost can be somewhat exciting for brands and businesses. Getting more content with minimal investment seems like a dream.
But at the same time, mass-generated AI content can scare consumers (what should they spend their time reading?) and search engines (what content should Google rank in search?).
A lot of content is already being created every day. How much is required for Google to decide to crawl, index, and rank a given query?
Google’s statement on AI-generated content. Is Google okay with crawling and ranking machine-generated content? Otherwise, is it okay if AI-generated content is reviewed by human editors before it’s published? ?
Google search rep Danny Sullivan echoed some of what he said earlier about Google’s stance on the topic.
Sullivan I have written On Twitter this morning, on the topic of AI-generated content, “Any content created primarily for search engine ranking is against our guidance.” He added, “If the content is useful and was created for people in the first place, it doesn’t matter.”
Sullivan then refers to guidelines on updating useful content, stating, “The key to success with useful content systems is that if it’s not helpful content, the system will catch it.” increase.
As long as AI can create useful content, it should be fine.
Sullivan then referred to the revised EEAT Quality Assessment Guidelines, stating: ,reliability)”
Finally, Google has a spam policy for automated content. The policy states that it was “generated by an automated process without regard to quality or user experience,” which violates Google’s guidelines.
why you care. We know that machine-generated content is nothing new, but what is new is that machines are getting better with the help of AI when it comes to generating high-quality, human-like content. . The question is, is it meant to help people, or is it meant to rank in Google searches? In the latter case, the purpose of a useful content system is to prevent such content from appearing higher.
For now, Google wants content by people, for people, but AI can be used in ideas to help them along the way. If machines and AI can create content, similar technologies would likely be able to detect AI-generated content.
What’s New in Search Engine Land
About the author
Barry Schwartz is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns his RustyBrick, his New York-based web consulting firm. He also runs the Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on highly advanced He SEM topics.You can follow Barry Twitter is here.
