Google says it will start cracking down on AI-generated content that is created simply to game its systems and rank higher in Google searches, a change that could have knock-on effects on the quality of content we see online .
Search God announced the news in a statement blog post Tuesday. According to Google, the change involves algorithmic enhancements to its core ranking system and is more complex than usual updates. The changes will affect three types of content, or what Google calls abuse, the most notable of which is automated content. This includes content created by generative artificial intelligence.
Elizabeth Tucker, director of product management at Google, said: “This update involves refining some of our core ranking systems to help us better understand whether pages are useless, have a poor user experience, or feel like they are designed for search engines. Not created for humans.” , stated in the announcement. “We believe these updates will reduce the amount of low-quality content in searches and send more traffic to useful and high-quality sites.”
While the blog itself doesn’t mention generative AI by name, a Google spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email that the updates directly address “low-quality AI-generated content designed to attract clicks, but that doesn’t add too much Much original value. ”
Tucker said Google expects the new changes to reduce low-quality and unoriginal content in its search results by 40%.
AI-generated content optimized for SEO (SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and is a set of guidelines designed to help websites rank higher in Google) has grown Showing up more and more in Google searches turn out recent months, according to multiple reports. At least part of the growth can be attributed to the increasing availability of artificial intelligence tools that can create content in Google’s preferred formats in seconds, and how easy it is to use them.
Last November, SEO consultant Jake Ward went viral on X/Twitter for bragging about how his company was leveraging artificial intelligence Stealed 3.4 million total traffic from competitors. Ward explained that he exported his competitors’ sitemaps and used AI to create 1,800 articles based on their URLs. Ward’s actions sparked widespread disgust online, but unfortunately it’s just one example of how people can use artificial intelligence to manipulate Google search results.
“You contributed to the dematerialization of the internet. But hey, you made the money, so who cares, right?” user @LigerzeroTTV responded Ward’s post on X.
In addition to addressing the issue of AI-generated SEO spam, Google’s new update will also target those who post low-quality content on sites with higher reputation scores. Here’s an example from Google:
“For example, a third party may post a payday loan review on a trusted educational website to gain a ranking advantage from that website. Such content ranking higher in searches may confuse or mislead visitors about their interest in a particular website may have very different expectations.”
Google claims that going forward it will treat such low-value content from third parties as spam.
Finally, Google said it is aware that some people have purchased expired domain names of favorite websites and repurposed them with low-quality content, aiming to use defunct sites to boost search rankings for questionable content.A recent example of this practice is hairpina women’s website that shut down in 2018, has recently resumed posting AI clickbait.
“Search helps people solve billions of questions every day, but there are always areas we can improve. We will continue to work to keep low-quality content on Search low and surface more information created to help people ,” said Tucker, director of product management.