Google is instructing its quality raters to watch out for pages with main content created using automated or generative AI tools — and to rate them as lowest quality, according to Google’s Senior Search Analyst and Search Relations team lead, John Mueller, speaking at Search Central Live in Madrid.
Google works with third-partySearch Quality Raters to experiment with ideas to improve the search results we see.
Quality Raters are spread worldwide and are trained to categorize information to improve search results. For example, Quality Raters may be asked which language a page is written in and what’s important on a page.
One of the new questions that Quality Raters are asked is to determine whether a piece of content is automated or created via generative AI tools. Automated or AI-generated content is rated as lowest quality.
This update is particularly impactful for businesses and SEO professionals who have been trying to use AI tools to create low-value website content in hopes of improving a site’s search rankings. Using AI tools such as ChatGPT or Perplexity to automate content creation will now do more SEO harm than good for websites.
Google’s Definition of Generative AI
According to Google, “Generative AI is a type of machine learning (ML) model that can take what it has learned from the examples it has been provided to create new content, such as text, images, music, and code. Different tools leverage these models to create generative AI content. Generative AI can be a helpful tool for content creation, but like any tool, it can also be misused.”
Google Reorganizes and Expands Spam Definitions
Google has updated how spammy webpages are defined. In the update, Google has added new subsections and increased its focus on scaled, low-effort content, including potential AI misuse.
- Expired Domain Abuse (Section 4.6.3): This happens when “an expired domain name is purchased and repurposed primarily to benefit the new website owner by hosting content that provides little to no value to users.”
- Site Reputation Abuse (Section 4.6.4): When “third-party content is published on a host site mainly because of that host’s already-established ranking signals, which it has earned primarily from its first-party content. The goal of this tactic is for the content to rank better than it could otherwise on its own.”
- Scaled Content Abuse (Section 4.6.5): Creating a lot of content “with little effort or originality with no editing or manual curation.” Generative AI is mentioned as one example of an automated tool used for this.
- MC [Main Content] Created with Little to No Effort, Little to No Originality, and Little to No Added Value for Website Visitors (Section 4.6.6): This is a new catch-all section for low-quality paraphrased content, often seen with generative AI and other forms of automated generation.
Section 4.6.6. is what Mueller called attention to in his presentation, specifically this part:
“The Lowest rating applies if all or almost all of the MC on the page (including text, images, audio, videos, etc) is copied, paraphrased, embedded, auto or AI generated, or reposted from other sources with little to no effort, little to no originality, and little to no added value for visitors to the website. Such pages should be rated Lowest, even if the page assigns credit for the content to another source.”
Overall, these updates suggest that SEO professionals and businesses cannot — and shouldn’t — generate low-quality content using AI tools, because Google doesn’t want its search results populated with low-quality content. Filling its search results with low-quality content would clearly lessen the usage of the Google search engine and negatively impact Google’s advertising business.
Going forward, it’s recommended that businesses and SEO professionals work with copywriters to develop authentic, branded content to improve a business’s overall marketing and SEO.
