You might be wondering how this is possible. You are doing just fine with AI tools and even progressing in your business. They write for you, act as your virtual assistant, and pretty much help you with everything. But there’s also a shadier side to it. Last month, Google rolled out a spam update in which it targeted websites that have content generated by AI. It affected AI pages that were poorly done and their rankings on search results, leaving an overall negative impact on businesses online.

The following are the global categories that have suffered the most damage:

serp volatility
(Source: NeilPatel.com)

As you can see from the chart, news and sports sites were hit the hardest. Arts and entertainment were close behind, and communities also made the top five.

Most of these sites were content-based rather than product-based.

Google’s spam update was based on mainly 3 elements:

Content

To get more search links and traffic, sites have content on their pages that provide little or no valuable information to users. These are thin-content scraper sites created by AI.

Meta tags and descriptions

Every business wants to appear on the first page of the search engine results. And to do so, they allow their meta tags to be repetitive and poorly written, targeting them only for search engines. They forget that they are operating for humans and not search engines.

Keywords

The best way to turn a user into a customer is by providing them with the precise and valuable information they are searching for. But it doesn’t mean that you ruin the reading experience by stuffing your content with keywords to make it more relevant. It will shoo them away.

Google had kept all of this in mind and targeted such websites that were heavily dependent on AI for their content.

However, you must know that not all AI pages were affected. AI content that was modified by humans fared way better.

To give you a summary, here’s a chart for you:

traffic and ranking
(Source: NeilPatel.com)

This means the more “human-generated” content you have, the better your business will do.

So what do you do now? How do you check if your content is authentic and valuable to your potential customers? How do you still use AI tools for content without causing damage to your website’s search rank and traffic?

Google has provided some actionable advice to prevent such damage.

Take the front seat in content generation:

If you’re using AI to generate content, don’t rely on it completely! Instead, modify your content. Your brand has its own voice; adjust the tone to match it. Don’t run after keywords; provide value in your information.

Get help from Google:

Google has invited users to learn more about its AI-based spam prevention system, Spam Brain. If your site’s rankings drop, review Google’s spam policies and ensure your webpages are compliant.

Final takeaway

While it is established that AI is beneficial to your business, relying completely on it is not. Let it help you, but have your own control. Consult with digital marketing firms to build your online presence in a reliable way. And most importantly, stay updated in this ever-changing environment!