Author: May Thawdar Oo
The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is in full swing as the technology is right at the precipice of true, disruptive mass adoption. It is driving innovation to an unfathomable scale, culminating in the release of AI tool after AI tool across a broad spectrum of industries.
We’re talking iPhone-in-2007 levels of groundbreaking.
And perhaps there is no other AI tool as squarely in the spotlight as ChatGPT – which has been the only thing anyone and everyone is talking about nowadays.
One of its main use cases is in content marketing, and it’s changing the way we approach the industry in several ways.
Besides democratizing access to a universe of knowledge and language, ChatGPT is being used to generate content, along with other pre-existing paid AI writers like Jasper.AI and Ryter.me, just to name a few – and they will only continue to improve over time.
But AI content generation has been around for as long as the internet has had those clunky article-spinning tools black hatters used to “game” their clients’ rankings. Remember those?
In fact, you might have unknowingly been using artificial intelligence in your content marketing already and none of this might be new to you at all. For instance, you might be familiar with Google RankBrain, a machine learning-based search engine algorithm rolled out in 2015 that tries to comprehend the intent behind a user’s search query.
It’s increasingly clear that the future of content creation lies in AI writing tools like ChatGPT, Rytr, and Jasper, just to name a few – which will enable creatives to scale their productivity to heights unheard of.
Content creators are coming up with ways to leverage the glut of AI content generation tools to generate article titles, and headings to, or help them get over that damned writer’s block. These tools can lay out the foundation of a website in seconds, making it easier to generate SEO-ready landing pages and websites.
So why not be more intentional about it and incorporate it into your iGaming content marketing strategy altogether?
However, we understand that Google has had a history of penalizing websites that use automatically-generated content.
So all this begs the following questions: How does ChatGPT and other AI-generated content affect Google?
Does Google penalize AI-generated content? Does using AI-generated content set off Google’s AI content detection sensors and tank your rankings? How does ChatGPT interact with Google ranking factors in 2023?
Let’s find out.
The Impact of AI-Enabled Tools in Content Marketing
We’ve already gone on a deep dive as to how ChatGPT is changing the content marketing game in our previous article.
As we’ve previously mentioned, the advent of natural language processing (NLP) GPT-3 (now GPT-4) and machine learning algorithms has enabled content marketers the world over to use ChatGPT to create bespoke content that addresses the interests, resonates with the needs, and even understand the cultural sensibilities of their target audiences.
In doing so, they increase their chances of driving engagement and high-quality traffic to their websites, landing pages, and/or socials – contributing to a more meaningful, more personalized customer experience based on their search history, location, and market segment.
ChatGPT can also be leveraged to curate and research content across a variety of sources, contributing to a more consistent, more value-added content marketing strategy, vertical notwithstanding.
All that, in significantly less time than it might take most humans to do so.
Ultimately, this can lead to greater levels of engagement, click-throughs, and conversions.
Where Did the Whole Notion That Google Penalized AI Content Come From?
The whole furor was set off after Google Search Advocate John Mueller equated AI-generated content with “spam” in an interview last year.
Not good!
That set off content marketers and SEO pros buzzing, especially as ChatGPT was just starting to blow up.
However, Mueller’s response should have been expected – using automatically-generated content had, after all, long been haram as far as the Google Webmaster Guidelines were concerned.
Not surprisingly, Mueller’s pronouncement triggered some controversy about how Google was against AI-generated content and that the platform may penalize pages with said content.
FUD ensued around the use of AI tools – which, as it turns out (and as we will discuss in just a bit), were largely unfounded and assuaged by Google shortly thereafter.
What’s the Argument for Google Giving Penalties to AI Content?
Google has had a long history of levying penalties on low-quality, low-effort websites and pages with auto-generated content – and that’s a good thing.
See, since time immemorial, crafty SEO pros have always tried to rig Google. There was a time when keyword stuffing, spinning articles, and plagiarizing content were among the techniques of chicanery that black hatters would employ to game their way to the top.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword Stuffing was a technique where black hats would pepper keywords in site meta tags and content, making it appear spammy, unnatural, and, ultimately, unfindable. Google quickly put the kibosh on this by banning and penalizing sites employing it in rankings.
Spinning
Spinning refers to the practice of using a website that would rewrite existing content, allowing black hats to spew out a boatload of content quickly – but because algorithms weren’t as robust then as they are now with the advancements in AI, the content would be full of grammatical errors and plagiarism galore.
These automated article spinners would produce content akin to a dumpster fire and were excruciating for human readers to have to read.
Duplicating
Duplicating content is another corollary, wherein the practice would be to copy and paste identical content to another page.
Black hat programs would create programs that scrape text from other pages and loop them up endlessly in order to create new text pages with jumbled-up versions to “circumvent” plagiarism.
Google quickly came around to these shady practices – among a host of other defunct black hat techniques – and began penalizing sites employing them upon detection.
This cat-and-mouse game between SEO wizards and Google engineers has led the latter to improve their algorithm and implement more updates against such tactics to ensure the quality of their search results.
💡 Key Takeaway: Websites complying with Google’s guidelines on 100% original content following its E-E-A-T standard will always rank higher on the SERPs.
But does that include 100% OC created with the help of AI writing tools like ChatGPT?
One Twitter user put the theory that content generated by AI doesn’t get Google traffic to the test:
Some claim that content generated by AI doesn’t get traffic on Google. But it doesn’t. An example? wisevoter. com. #ai #content #chatgpt pic.twitter.com/jkvwafj9kB
— Dmytro Sokhach (@Dmytro_Sokhach) April 6, 2023
So, what is it, really? Google has finally shed more light on its stance.
What Is Google’s Stance on AI-Generated Content, Anyway?
Google put any doubts about the mere use of ChatGPT or AI-related tools being penalized to rest in its latest blog post addressing the subject.
In it, Google clarified that it would continue rewarding unique, high-quality, value-added content regardless of how said web content was generated. That includes ChatGPT and any AI writing tool of your choice.
However, using AI writing tools for the sole purpose of gaming search engine rankings is still a no-no. That means no using ChatGPT or Jasper to generate black hat SEO-optimized verbal effluvia will still be (rightfully) marked as spam and attract stiff penalties.
”When it comes to automatically generated content, our guidance has been consistent for years. Using automation – including AI – to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policies.”
Google explicitly states that the appropriate use of automation tools or AI writers is not against their guidelines per se, underlining the inherent ability of AI to release greater levels of creative freedom and expression as a tool for content creators to leverage and create high-value content meant for humans.
Content is Still “King” – Now and Forever
Content is king. Always has been and always will be.
There’s no substitute for exceptional content.
And there’s no better way to make sure you abide by Google’s standards of good content – namely, its Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) guideline.
This guideline is one of the standards Google uses to determine which content should rank higher as a result of its quality, along with its other algorithmic factors. It will indirectly impact your rankings, we’ll tell you that much.
Google has always rewarded quality content ever since it burst into the internet scene. The same rules apply today in 2023 as they did in 1996. Their content system ensures that people find content created for humans to read, rather than robots and web crawlers.
So, the question isn’t what you use to create your content, but whether it’s good enough to rank well for Google. If ChatGPT helps you create E-E-A-T-worthy content that Google loves, then your page will rank.
Google Won’t Penalize Websites for the Mere Use of AI-Generated Content Per Se
So, what are the key takeaways? The biggest one is that Google cannot necessarily detect content generated by neural networks like GPT-3 and GPT-4.
Google has made themselves clear that they aren’t penalizing any and all automatically-generated content using tools like AI writers.
Instead, they lay out the ground rules as to what kind of content will be rewarded and what kind of content will get bumped off the SERPs – the latter being spammy, spun, and automatically-generated without editing for human readers they have always been against.
So yes, you can sleep well at night knowing that using ChatGPT, Rytr.me, or Jasper wouldn’t automatically leave you on Google’s bad side – for as long as you leverage them appropriately. That is, by using them to generate the bedrock of your content, review it, and repurpose it with your personal style, flair, and creativity to create posts your audience will want to read.
Creating excellent, well-researched, and engaging content has always been the bread and butter of good search rankings – and while Google won’t penalize high-quality, high-value AI-generated, or otherwise automated content, don’t get us wrong.
They will bring the hammer down on your site if you try gaming your rankings using AI.
Nevertheless, the next several years will be interesting as we move towards a future where AI-generated content will become part and parcel of the modern content marketing arsenal. Watch this space!
Header Image Source: Photo by Mojahid Mottakin on Unsplash
How did you like May Thawdar Oo’s blog post “Google x ChatGPT: Do AI Writing Tools Violate Google’s Quality Standards?”? Let us know in the comments if you have anything to add, have another content idea for iGaming blog posts, or just want to say “hello.” 🙂