Google's guidance on AI and how it impacts search

AI generated content is nothing new to the folks at Google. Rather than fanning the flames around the ‘will my job become redundant’ debate, Google wants us to know that there is indeed a positive place for AI Generated content online so long as ‘content relevance’ and genuine ‘usefulness’ is at its core.

‍

High quality content is paramount to Google and the reward is higher ranking search results. Google even has a type of mantra for it – E-E-A-T which stands for expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. These cues are the hallmarks for producing quality and useful content – which is what spawned Google’s Helpful Content initiative launched in 2022.

‍

Yay to AI, Nay to Spam

‍

As you can imagine, Google is thirsty for all things AI, including AI produced content. What it does object to however is when said content is produced artificially with the sole purpose of manipulating the ranking game – kinda like the tech version of a Trojan Horse with a sneaky ranking agenda built within. Specific tools like ‘SpamBrain’ detects this kind of content, sees it for what it is and will clap back with a low ranking. Despite this, the tech giant is bombarded with this type of content day in and day out. Regardless, their playbook states that genuinely helpful content alone holds the key to the ranking gates.

‍

‍

The Pros

‍

AI has long been used to deliver helpful and relevant information that assists audiences in their quest for knowledge or for the best Vegan Paella recipe. Google rightly points out that everyday info including sports scores and weather predictions are generated by AI, so it’s been an ally of ours for some time now. We’re already seeing how AI can generate creative content that is culturally enriching like poetry, song lyrics and even art works. That creative content dresses the internet with information and aesthetics that inspires audiences and shares ideas and insights. As long as the intention behind the AI generated content is to ‘help’ rather than ‘suck into a blackhole of irrelevance’.

‍

Taking a Cue

‍

Google wants to see more and more people ‘thoughtfully’ create AI Generated content that is underpinned by their E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) ethos. They believe this guideline will keep content creators on a steady course and inline with Google’s expectations, while making the internet the ever-informative, shareable and useful landscape it was designed to be. Just like human-created content, Google places great emphasis on the quality and source reliability of AI created content. Fact checking and source integrity is paramount to what Google deems to be a ‘helpful’ and ‘useful’ piece of content, which all goes towards a better (and genuinely deserved) ranking – and who doesn’t love that?

‍

Google has outlined a thought-provoking and handy set of FAQs that aim to answer the most common questions content creators may have. It’s definitely worth checking out.

‍

‍