AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is becoming more and more popular for creators. With various tools on offer, many use AI in order to streamline their work process or make production more convenient, especially when building websites and blogs. However, a big question many ask is: Is AI-generated content good for SEO?
As SEO is one of the most important elements of growing your website, this is an important question to consider. It can be hard to pick out the truth, with many debating whether AI can give you a boost for better rankings or whether it can put your SEO at risk.
With recent industry shifts, such as the increased use of AI tools and Google’s recently updated stance on the use of AI, it’s important to break down exactly what kind of impact AI can have on your site’s SEO.
What Is AI-Generated Content (and How Is It Made)?
Generative AIs are artificial intelligence models that are designed to generate new content. They carry a large amount of data that has been learned from existing data already created by someone else and use it to create original content.
Some of the most common AI-generated types of content include:
- Blog posts
- Product descriptions
- FAQs
- Images
- Social media captions
- Email copy
- Website copy
- Technical Articles
Sometimes this content includes human participation to create it, providing prompting details or editing and reworking, whilst some content is fully automated.
Google’s Official Stance on AI Content
When AI-generated content started to flood the online space, many wondered how search engines would respond and whether they would reward or ban AI-generated content. Understanding how search engines respond is crucial when figuring out if AI-generated content is good for SEO.
While Google did not ban AI-generated content outright, it did put in place new guidelines and restrictions that would hinder the prevalence of low-value AI content.
First, Google introduced the E-E-A-T guidelines. This stands for:
- Experience – Does the author display firsthand experience of the topic?
- Expertise – Does the author display a high level of knowledge in the topic?
- Authoritativeness – Is the author recognized as an authority in the topic?
- Trustworthiness – Is the content trustworthy, safe, and reliable?
By prioritizing these guidelines, Google made sure that human content that was high value and authentic would generally rank higher than AI-generated content.
They also released the “Helpful Content” update, which meant that Google would prioritize content that is:
- Written for people, not just search engines
- Genuinely useful and original
- Demonstrates first-hand experience
As you can see, all of these guidelines mean that AI-generated content can be unhelpful for creating content that Google values.
However, as we can see, AI-generated content has not been outright banned. So, when is AI-Generation content good for SEO, and how can we use it to help our sites grow?
When is AI-generated Content Good for SEO?
There are some situations when AI-generated content is good for SEO, but it has to be utilized carefully so as not to make a mistake. Some of the ways in which AI-generated content is good for SEO include:
Scalability
With the use of SEO, you can create more content more quickly. However, you must be careful with this. Producing too much low-value content at too quick a pace can signal to Google the use of AI. Instead, AI can be used to generate content ideas or to boost your content production when you’re short on time.
Consistency
If your site contains a large volume of content, AI can help you to keep your tone and style consistent throughout, which can help Google to recognize your content as more reliable and authoritative.
Efficiency
You can make your workflow more effective by creating plans or outlines for the content you are going to create. Allowing AI to do the more technical side of it can give you more time to really knuckle down and refine the content you’re going to publish.
SEO Risks of AI-Generated Content
While these benefits show that AI can be useful in some ways for SEO, there are also a large number of risks that come along with the use of AI. Some of these risks include:
Thin Content Creation
Generative AI tools can often produce thin content without much substance, and they often lack originality. This thin content is specifically penalized by Google and is considered unhelpful and low-value for users.
Duplicate Content Creation
Due to the fact that AI models learn their information from pre-existing material, there is always a risk that they may produce content that is very similar to something that has already been published. This means you will end up with duplicate content on your site, which is harmful for SEO.
Factual Inaccuracies
While AI can be helpful for research, it can also contain many factual inaccuracies. It may produce out-of-date information or, if it can’t find requested information in its database, it may make up information that is entirely inaccurate. This will greatly diminish the expertise and authority of your site.
Over-optimized Content
When site owners aren’t sure how to optimize their content for SEO, they can be led to believe that using AI tools to optimize it for them is the best way to go in order to save money and time. However, when asked to optimize, AI tools have a tendency to overcompensate and engage in harmful practices like keyword stuffing instead of producing the natural, human-sounding content Google values.
Risk of Manual Penalties
If your site is considered to be using AI only to maintain rankings on Google, then you could be at risk of manual penalties, This is when your site is reviewed by a human who may then place specific penalties on your site, such as de-indexing, which can result in enormous drops in traffic and rankings. This is extremely harmful to a site’s success.
Is AI-generated Content Good For SEO?
While AI can help you streamline your work process, AI-generated content can also do more harm than good. While AI content is not outright banned by Google, its usage in order to gain rankings or produce low-quality content will be penalized.
If you use AI, you will still need to make sure the content is personable and high-quality, usually by reworking, rewriting, or developing it yourself. So, while AI is great for convenience, it’s not the best for directly improving your SEO.
Why Should You Work With SEO Baguette?
While AI tools can be a risky way to streamline your content, here at SEO Baguette, we can offer a reliable alternative.
As a team of experienced and knowledgeable SEO experts, we make sure to bring a human touch to whatever we produce. For example, when providing our content creation service, we make sure to provide original, high-quality content that is optimized for SEO while still feeling human. This means that you can outsource your content production without putting your SEO status at risk.
Get in touch or request a free SEO site audit to learn how we can help you grow your site with confidence and achieve your goals without the risk of AI tools hindering your progress.
