In an update to their Search Quality Rater Guidelines, Google is now asking its quality raters to assess whether content is AI (artificial intelligence)-generated.
Google is instructing its team of quality raters – the people responsible for evaluating search results – to look out for web pages where the primary content appears to have been created using automated or generative AI tools.
If the main content is suspected to have been produced using AI tools such as ChatGPT or other AI writing generators, the page should be given the lowest possible quality rating.
Web pages that receive the lowest quality rating may suffer reduced visibility and rankings in search results, resulting in less organic traffic visiting the site. This penalty could cause harm to the site’s overall credibility, trustworthiness and authority.
Speaking at Search Central Live Madrid, John Mueller, Google’s Senior Search Analyst, shared a snippet of text from the Search Quality Rater Guidelines that confirmed:
“The lowest rating applies if all or almost all of the main content on the page (including text, images, audio, videos) is copied, paraphrased, embedded, auto or AI generated, or reposted from other sources with little no effort, little to no originality, and little to no added value for visitors to the website.”
It’s not yet been made clear how Google’s quality raters will determine whether content has been generated by AI tools, but this update indicates a shift in the search engine’s priorities.
With artificial intelligence tools dominating the search landscape in recent months, Google is reinforcing its commitment to providing users with original, high-quality, valuable content that is created by people, for people.
This should reassure SEO (search engine optimisation) professionals that content that is created by humans will hold strong against AI-generated alternatives.
Curious to know whether the content on your website may be impacted by this recent update? Reach out to the team at Engage Web today.
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