Google’s March 2024 core algorithm update penalizes sites made of AI-generated content and the fact that AI-generated content may not meet quality standards is outlined in various Google documents. But there is still a way to use AI in a way that results in high-quality content.
Why AI Can’t Meet Google’s Quality Thresholds
Many rating systems, including review and helpful content systems, have implicit quality standards that are inherently impossible to satisfy for AI-authored content.
The addition of an extra E to EAT (for experience) should have been a signal to content creators that using AI poses risks.
Examples of SERP features, quality signals and ranking signals that inherently exclude AI content.
The writing on the wall about AI content has always been clear.
Here are some features that are important according to Google’s documentation that rule out purely AI-generated content:
- Experience
- Published reviews should be hands-on
- Google News emphasizes human authors in the Google News SERPs.
- In the context of Google announced in May 2023, there is an emphasis on human authors (hidden gems) found in forums.
- Author Page (Expert Questions)
- Author Background Information (Expert Questions)
- About the Author Page (Expert Questions)
Concepts of quality
Google published self-assessment questions to help publishers identify whether their content meets Google’s quality standards.
These questions do not list specific rating factors. They only list concepts of things that generally reflect what high-quality websites display.
If AI-generated content can’t fit these concepts, then it’s likely that the content doesn’t meet quality standards, regardless of how publishers try to fake visible signs of quality like author pages.
Authorship and Expertise
The expert section of self-assessment documents mentions authors in a way that cannot be replicated with machine-generated content.
This section states:
“Does the content present information in a way that would lead you to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of expertise involved, background about the author or the site that published it, such as an author page or through links to a site’s About page?
The aforementioned section focuses on expertise on the following three factors:
- Sourcing (citing sources, fact-checking, attribution of quotes)
- Evidence of the skills involved
- Author’s background
Those three qualities are outward signs typically associated with expertise that cannot be achieved by AI.
Content Quality: Original
The Content and Criteria section of the Self-Assessment Guide requires originality.
That section of Google’s documentation asks:
“Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
…does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information beyond the obvious?
Irregularity is the hallmark of generative AI. Content generated by creative AI is a potential series of words on literally any topic.
First hand skills
The first section of the self-assessment questions asks about people’s first skills:
“Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and depth of knowledge (for example, expertise gained from actually using a product or service, or visiting a location) ?”
Clearly a machine does not have first-hand expertise. It cannot handle a product or use a service.
AI can still be used for content creation.
Given how many sites with AI-generated content are slapped with manual processes during the March 2024 Core algorithm update, it may be time to rethink the place of AI for web content.
There is still a way to use AI that can result in high-quality content from people. What matters most about content is the insight behind the content, not who or what wrote it.
The way forward may be to use a combination of human insight and experience as data that AI can use to create content.
How to create review content with AI
For example, it is possible to measure product reviews by creating a checklist of data points that consumers need to make a purchase decision. Someone still has to handle and evaluate the product, but they only have to write scores and comments for each data point on the evaluation checklist.
If the review is for a children’s bicycle, benchmark the things that consumers want to know about the bicycle, such as what age and size the bicycle fits, how much it weighs, how strong the training wheels are, etc. If it’s a television review, the checklist will include criteria related to black levels, off-center viewing, ease of color setting, etc.
At the end of the checklist is a section called Final Impressions which lists pros and cons as well as overall feelings where the reviewer writes whether they feel positive, neutral, negative about the product. And who thinks the product is best for people like them. A budget, those who want performance and so on. Once this is done, upload the document to your AI and ask it to write a review.
How to write any type of content with AI
An acquaintance shared a tip with me about using AI to polish raw content. His workflow consisted of just putting everything that needed to be said into the recording, regardless of paragraph structure. He then uploads it to ChatGPT and asks to turn it into a professional document. He may even ask her to prepare pros and cons and an executive summary.
AI augments human input.
My advice is to think of the AI ​​as a ghostwriter that takes a rough document and turns it into a brilliant article or essay. This approach can work for almost any scenario, including scaled product descriptions.
The main qualities of content are those provided by a human that an AI is not capable of, things like sourcing, evidence of expertise, sourcing and the background that a human brings to the topic being written about. Humans bring experience, expertise, authority and confidence. AI can take elements that humans provide and turn them into high-quality content.
Given how many sites with AI-generated content are slapped with manual actions during the March 2024 core algorithm update, it may be time to rethink how AI is used when it comes to content. .
I planned and wrote most of this article in September 2023 and sat on it because I thought, who will believe me?
Now that it’s March 2024 and the SEO industry is facing calculations based in part on AI-generated content, people are increasingly considering better ways to integrate AI into content creation workflows. can accept