Part of:What you need to know about AI-generated content
Will AI-generated content affect SEO best practices?
Content marketers that want to embrace AI-generated content should know how the technology affects SEO best practices and new guidelines on AI tools from major search engines.
As AI becomes more useful and more widely available, the content it generates will become more prevalent in marketing strategies.
For digital marketing teams that create content for their brands, search engine optimization (SEO) plays a key role. Many marketers might wonder how the relationship between SEO and AI-generated content will continue to evolve, and how search engines like Google will change their guidelines for content to reflect the complex and rapidly changing generative AI environment.
In short, SEO's role won't change, but marketers' roles and how or whether they use AI-generated content might.
Is AI-generated content good or bad for SEO?
AI-generated content cannot be categorized as good or bad for SEO on its own. While AI-generated content's power lies in its speed and perceived quality, marketing teams can't support brands by simply jumping on a bandwagon -- whether it's AI or some other new technology. Digital marketing teams must consider the intended content itself, including whether portions of the writing, research, proofreading or other parts of the content creation process lend themselves more to automation than others.
SEO aims to provide the most valuable, focused content to solve a user's problem, at least according to search engine algorithms and their human evaluators. It does not really matter for SEO whether that content is human- or machine-generated. What matters for SEO is whether the content seems original, compelling, crisp and valuable. How marketers create content that meets that goal will increasingly blend human and machine processes.
A team should constantly evaluate their goals, AI's capabilities, prompt engineering methodologies and, most of all, the brand message and content value. Teams that push the envelope on the end result of content creation will discover that any issues with raw AI-generated content are gone by the time they publish quality, relevant content.
Google's updated guidelines for AI-generated content
Google recently updated its guidelines for search quality evaluation, a key factor in SEO. These updated guidelines specifically reference AI-generated content and emphasize the importance of transparency and ensuring AI-generated content is unique and valuable for readers.
Google gives site content the lowest rating if it determines it has little originality and no editing or human curation. It focuses on de-emphasizing spam and scaled content abuse -- creating a lot of unoriginal content with minimal value for readers -- and promoting content that meets its criteria of experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
It does not really matter for SEO whether that content is human- or machine-generated.
Many of Google's guidelines also offer advice to organizations and content creators who handle AI-generated content. For example, content creators should disclose when they use AI to remain transparent and build consumer trust.
Large language models, such as ChatGPT, carry some risk of plagiarism, as the LLM might repeat verbatim some of the material it was trained on. Machine learning does not understand the human relevance of the content it processes. Content creators must disclose any content generated from tools built on LLMs to maintain their SEO rankings and avoid penalties from search engines.
Content marketing, management and creation jobs have changed with AI-generated content, including the need to validate and refine raw data provided by the algorithms. However, the core purpose remains the same: to provide original, valuable content that does not read like spam. Google also aims to evaluate -- whether by human agents or Google algorithms -- which pages provide high-quality content and, accordingly, promote them.
Google's updated guidelines for content, created in response to the emergence of AI content-generation tools like ChatGPT, will change SEO best practices for some organizations.
Risks of AI-generated content in marketing
While AI-generated content can lower costs and increase employee efficiency, it brings risks that marketers should consider before using AI-generated text, images and videos. These include the following:
Lack of creativity. AI-generated content often lacks creativity or originality. It might feel flat or nonhuman, which could diminish user experiences.
Potential copyright infringement. Marketers should be cautious about potential copyright infringement, as AI algorithms might produce content that plagiarizes existing material.
Appearance of spam. The ease of automation with AI-generated content also raises concerns about bots generating low-quality information that users might consider spam. This can harm SEO rankings and damage a brand's reputation.
Loss of content relatability. Brands that post AI-generated content on social media platforms might struggle to maintain an authentic and relatable online presence. AI-generated content varies wildly in quality. For example, if a brand generates an image of people enjoying a party, a user could zoom in to see that one person's teeth look strange, while another person has extra fingers. This inauthenticity could turn users away.
Improper tone. Digital marketing strategies aim to maintain and enhance the brand. AI cannot understand this concept. Both during prompt engineering and human review, marketing teams should work to align the content's tone with the brand and its intended message.
Content errors. Automatically generated content can contain hallucinations. Because most LLMs rely on probable statements, they can sometimes create content that is factually incorrect or that does not convincingly support its statements, even if they are correct.
Best practices for AI-generated content
To incorporate AI-generated content effectively into workflows, brands should take time to develop policies regarding its use and maintain and update these policies frequently.
AI-generated content creation can help a business, but it is not a panacea.
For example, brands should consider the following best practices:
Subject AI-generated content to human review and oversight. An AI engine can't see where it has strayed into the uncanny valley or where its content comes off as nonhuman and creepy. Brands should review the content to check for authenticity and accuracy.
Review content for plagiarism. Many generative AI tools like ChatGPT are trained on existing web content, so they sometimes repeat content verbatim from other sites. Brands can review the content with plagiarism-checker tools, such as Scribbr, Grammarly or PlagAware.
Set and follow editorial guidelines and standards. Brands can implement strict editorial guidelines and style standards to help maintain consistent and quality content. They can also include guidelines in AI prompts, so the tool can generate content that fits the standard.
Ensure content will resonate with target audiences. Creative team members can add a unique touch to AI-generated content and should be part of the reviewing process. This team can ensure content aligns with the brand's voice and resonates with the target audience.
Fact-check the content. If the AI-generated content makes factual assertions, it requires human review and possibly research to confirm them. The speed and cost savings of LLM-generated content can benefit teams, but not if its assertions are incorrect. Content marketing teams should plan to invest any saved time back into a quality review of the facts.
Proofread the content. Proofreading is the final part of a digital marketing team's content creation process, even when it involves LLM-generated content. When a marketing team's human editors and writers review generated content, they might introduce spelling or grammatical errors while focused on fixing uncanny valley, AI hallucinations or other issues.
Monitor content regularly. Brands that monitorAI-generated content regularly can update how they interact with their AI engine and adapt to evolving trends and user preferences in content. Monitoring also helps them keep up with what is possible and recommended for prompt engineering.
Key takeaways
As AI-generated content becomes more common, content teams must understand its effect on SEO best practices. If brands follow Google's guidelines and augment AI content with quality human oversight and plagiarism reviews, content managers and leaders can continue to maintain high SEO rankings.
AI-generated content creation can help a business, but it is not a panacea. To succeed with SEO and AI-generated content, brands should blend AI's benefits with human creativity and oversight. Together, this can maintain or enhance content's search engine performance and deliver valuable, engaging content to consumers.
Editor's note: This article was originally published in 2023 and was updated to reflect changes in AI-generated content and SEO.
Jordan Jones is a writer versed in enterprise content management, component content management, web content management and video-on-demand technologies.
