Are you relying on AI-generated content to boost your website's ranking or planning to use it? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” it's crucial for you to know whether Google considers it a black hat tactic or a legitimate strategy. Let's dive into the debate and find out whether Google bans AI-generated content.

Necessary Context

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming various industries, including content marketing, where it is being used to curate and create texts, videos, and audio. With advancements in technology and machine learning, AI-generated content is becoming increasingly popular as it saves time and money for businesses. However, whether or not Google bans it remains unclear to many. This issue can be settled now that Google has made an official statement.

Another concern among marketers is whether or not AI-generated content can rank highly on Google search results. After all, while this type of content is cost-effective, it may have disadvantages. If not reviewed and edited by a human, there is a risk that AI-generated content may lack personality and creativity.

This article will explore the numerous possibilities of using AI-generated content in marketing and offer insights on how brands can effectively address the above mentioned questions. 

Google on AI-Generated Content 

Google Search's guidance about AI-generated content – a full, official version by Google.

Intentful’s summary: Your content needs to be helpful to the user and address the user’s query. Not keyword-stuffed, not irrelevant, but helpful. As long as it is helpful, how it was created, doesn’t matter as much.

Google's ranking systems aim to reward original, high-quality content that demonstrates E-E-A-T — expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 

Brands should look to produce unique people-first content that has E-E-A-T qualities. They must evaluate it in terms of Who, How, and Why to stay on course with what Google's systems seek to reward.

When assessing your content this way, consider who created it, how they did it, and for what purpose. Make sure it is designed primarily to help people. This will help you to stay in line with E-E-A-T principles and what Google’s core ranking algorithms seek to reward.

In other words, Google penalizes people who try to cheat the system with low-quality spam-like content designed to manipulate search engine rankings. Conversely, Google values content that puts users first, regardless of whether humans are behind the keyboard.

Relevant SEO Realities You Should Know About

Before discussing how to use artificial intelligence to create what Google loves, let's look at how much Internet stuff Google doesn't love and how many brands are in trouble.

According to a study by Ahrefs, 90.6% of all content gets no organic traffic from Google. That's a staggering amount of pages that are essentially invisible to potential customers.

This can be seen as an opportunity for brands that invest heavily in content marketing to find new and creative ways to reach and engage with their audience. If what they create isn't getting discovered, it's not generating leads, sales, or any other meaningful business outcomes.

The reason is that too much content is irrelevant, or poorly optimized for search engines.

How to Use AI to Create Content Google Rewards

The obvious question, then, is whether it's possible to generate—at scale—original, helpful content when using AI.

The answer is a resounding "yes." The secret (and really, the only way to go) is to "employ" AI as your copywriter, with human specialists working as editors and subject-matter experts and tackling creative, non-routine issues. Brands can use artificial intelligence to create original pieces that are both informative and engaging as long as the content is helpful and is in line with official Google guidelines about AI (which are always subject to change). 

Our approach is built on a unique combination of human expertise, the use of data insights, artificial intelligence, and a deep understanding of engagement metrics that drive performance.

We recognize that AI is still in its infancy, leading to multiple rounds of revisions and QA. We have three stages of quality assurance (QA) by our human team. Our specialists review and edit the texts generated by AI to ensure that they are accurate, informative, and on-brand. Despite three people reviewing each piece of content, ready-to-be-published texts are still created several times faster and are considerably more cost-efficiently. This approach also ensures that such content is of the highest quality and always put readers first.

If you have questions regarding AI-powered content or how our services can benefit your business, don't hesitate to reach out.