The March 2024 core algorithm update is penalizing content generated by AI. Here’s a more effective approach to utilizing AI for achieving top-ranked content.
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Google’s core algorithm update in March 2024 is penalizing websites created with AI-generated content. AI-generated content cannot meet the quality standards outlined in Google’s various documentation. However, there’s still a method to utilize AI that yields high-quality content.
The addition of an extra E in E-A-T (for experience) should have been a signal to content creators that using AI carried risks.
Examples of SERP features, quality signals, and ranking signals that naturally exclude AI-generated content.
The writing on the wall about AI content has always been in plain sight.
Here are some qualities that Google’s documentations say are important and rule out purely AI-generated content:
- Experience
- Published reviews must be hands-on
- Google News emphasizes human authors in Google News SERPs
- Google Perspectives, announced in May 2023 emphasizes human authors (hidden gems) found in forums
- Author page (expertise questions)
- Author background information (expertise questions)
- Author About page (expertise questions)
Concepts Of Quality
Google published Self-Assessment Questions to help publishers identify if their content measures up to Google’s standards of quality.
These inquiries don’t enumerate particular ranking elements. Instead, they outline general concepts reflecting what high-quality websites typically display.
Suppose AI-generated content cannot align with these concepts. In that case, the content probably fails to meet quality standards, irrespective of attempts by publishers to mimic indicators of quality such as author pages.
Authorship And Expertise
The Expertise section of the Self-Assessment documentation discusses authors in a manner that machine-generated content cannot replicate.
This section states:
“Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s About page?”
The above-quoted section centers expertise on the following three factors:
- Sourcing (citations to sources, fact-checking, attribution of quotes)
- Evidence of expertise involved
- Author background
Those three qualities are the signs usually linked with expertise, something that AI can’t achieve.
Content Quality: Originality
The content and quality section of the self-assessment guide requires originality.
Here’s what that section of Google’s documentation asks:
“Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
…Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond the obvious?”
Generative AI is known for creating unoriginal content. It generates the most common words on a topic.
First-Hand Expertise
The people-first section of the self-assessment questions asks about first-hand expertise:
“Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?”
A machine doesn’t have first-hand expertise. It can’t handle a product or use a service.
AI Can Still Be Used For Content Creation
Given how many sites with AI-generated content are getting slapped with manual actions during the March 2024 core algorithm update, it may be time to reconsider the place of AI for web content.
There’s a way to use AI to make good content that focuses on people. What’s important is the understanding behind the content, not who wrote it.
One option is to combine human knowledge and experience as data that AI can use to create content.
How To Create Review Content With AI
For instance, you can expand product reviews by making a list of points that consumers need to decide on a purchase. Someone still needs to check and review the product, but they only need to write scores and comments for each point on the review list.
If it’s a review for a kids’ bike, list things like the age and size it fits, its weight, and how strong the training wheels are. For a TV review, the list will include things like how black the black levels are, how good it looks from the side, and how easy it is to set the colors.
At the end of the list, there’s a part called “final thoughts” where the reviewer lists pros and cons and overall feelings, like if they feel positive, neutral, or negative about the product and who they think it’s best for, like budget shoppers or those who want top performance. Once that’s done, upload the document to your AI and ask it to write the review.
How To Write Any Kind Of Content With AI
Our friend mentioned a trick for refining rough content using AI. Here’s how it works: first, you talk about everything you want to say in a recording, without worrying about how it’s organized.
Then, you upload it to ChatGPT and ask it to turn it into a polished document. You can even ask it to make pros and cons and a summary.
AI Amplifies Human Input
Think of AI as a ghostwriter that refines rough writing into a polished piece. This method can apply to almost any situation, even for mass-produced product descriptions.
The crucial aspects of content come from humans, things AI can’t do, like sourcing, evidence of expertise, and the background a person brings to the topic. Humans provide the Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. AI can take these human-provided elements and create high-quality content.
Given how many sites with AI-generated content are getting slapped with manual actions during the March 2024 core algorithm update, it may be time to reconsider how AI is used when it comes to content.
We made most of these articles in September 2023 but held off wondering if anyone would believe us.
Now, in March 2024, with the SEO industry dealing with issues related to AI-generated content, folks might be more open to exploring better ways to use AI in content creation.
