What is AI-Generated Content?
AI-generated content is content that is created from artificial intelligence. AI-powered tools, founded in natural language generation (NGL) technology, create content by scanning existing information on the internet and summarising it in a natural way that simulates human writing. The output of these AI tools is reworded copy with no value or human expertise applied.
This content can come in many forms, such as blogs, articles, product descriptions and marketing materials. Because AI bots only need simple instructions such as the required topic and keyword to quickly produce content, businesses and non-marketers can be drawn to these tools as a seemingly easy and cheap way to produce copy.
AI technologies have drastically improved in quality and adoption over recent years with robot-generated text becoming more and more commonplace. This is due, in part, to machine learning — an application of AI that enables systems to learn and improve from experience without being programmed to do so.
What is the Impact of Machine Learning and Deep Fake Technology?
While machine learning can be used for relatively benign applications, such as making an intelligent interpretation of a user’s search intent for SEO purposes, increasingly concerning is the rise of deep fake technology used to spread misinformation and disinformation.
Apart from poor content quality, fake content is another real concern of AI-generated content. Recent years have shown how damaging misleading fake news and information can be. To avoid inadvertently spreading false information and risking an impact on reputation, businesses, marketers and content creators should perform their due diligence when using these tools in their marketing.
Google’s Helpful Content Update
Google updates its algorithms frequently to meet user expectations and stay up-to-date with technological advances. The roll-out of the ‘Helpful Content Update’ in August 2022 is one good example of an algorithm update that has been released specifically to improve its users’ search experience.
With the widespread adoption of AI writing tools, Google recognised that websites filled with mass-produced content optimised for search engines were unhelpful and unsatisfying to the user. To ensure it is always serving the best results to its users, the Helpful Content Update outlines that it will reward people-first content.
Unlike high-quality pages, low-value content is search engine-first and generally lack the depth needed to satisfy a reader’s search query. Because users are unlikely to engage with content that doesn’t make sense or answer their questions, high-quality pages that deliver users more relevant and helpful information will be favoured over ‘unhelpful’ and ‘spammy’ websites.
Although Google keeps most of its ranking factors under wraps, with this update, it would be reasonable to assume that Google would take into consideration engagement metrics like session duration and bounce rates to determine if a page and its content have provided a good user experience. A good user experience will likely be rewarded in better search positions so similar users can find your content.
What Content Should You Create?
Google cares most about content being human-first, so extensive automation and keyword stuffing won’t help you earn top spots in the search engine results pages (SERPS). Google doesn’t want to supply its users with unhelpful websites, so it is important to ensure that everything you write is done so with your target audience in mind and not just because of a trend.
Here are some things to consider for creating superior content:
Quality: Keyword research is still important for understanding what your customers are looking for and seeking answers to. This research should form part of your content strategy in combination with SEO best practices to provide a more satisfying experience to your readers.
Humanised content: Well-written, on-brand and original content is always going to be more satisfying to the reader than spammy and jumbled content that makes little sense. Good-quality writing is where you can make an impact with your creativity, humour and human appeal to make your articles engaging and shareable — key metrics for success.
These concepts are reinforced in Google’s recent Search Central Discover documentation update, which emphasises the importance of creating helpful content. This update makes it clear that Google’s Helpful Content not only affects Google searches but also Discover: “Discover makes use of many of the same signals and systems used by Search to determine what is helpful, people-first content.”
Make sure what you create adds value and that your expertise helps answer your customers’ questions. Structuring your content in a way that flows and having in-depth pages or blogs that cover all the points comprehensively will be of higher value to the user. In fact, it is now better to publish 1 well-thought-out blog that is tailored to your audience rather than churning out 4-5.
AI is a Tool, Not a Solution
AI can be a powerful writing assistant if used responsibly. It can be used as a research tool to source content suggestions to help overcome writer’s block, paraphrase short passages and speed up editing. But there are risks in becoming overly reliant on these tools for content generation.
The Search Logistics AI Content Detection Case Study demonstrates the impact of using AI content for your website and SEO. The case study reveals how publicly available tools can easily detect AI content produced by several different AI tools. The study generated AI content using 9 different commercial tools, which were then put through 5 AI content detectors and 2 plagiarism checkers.
Interestingly, the case study included content from ChatGPT. It is a general-purpose chatbot that uses deep learning to create impressive human-like text and is the latest evolution of OpenAI’s GPT-3. It became a viral sensation since its launch in late 2022 for its remarkable ability to answer complex questions.
