In a blog post on Tuesday, Google announced a strategy to combat AI-generated content that is meticulously tailored to manipulate search algorithms and artificially boost rankings. This notable change in Google's approach to improving the overall quality of online content includes complex algorithmic improvements to its core ranking system. The primary focus of these changes is to address three types of content fraud, with a particular focus on automated content, including content generated by AI.
Elizabeth Tucker, Google's director of product management, said these updates will improve the ranking system and make it easier to understand whether a web page is truly providing support or is being created primarily to cater to search engines. The aim is to strengthen the ability to identify. The ultimate goal is to minimize the presence of low-quality content in search results and drive more traffic to trusted and valuable websites.
While the blog post doesn't explicitly mention generative AI, a Google spokesperson told Gizmodo that the update is specifically “designed to attract clicks, but doesn't offer much of the original value.” The company clarified that it is targeting “low-quality AI-generated content that does not add content.”
Google estimates that these changes will significantly reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%.
In addition to addressing AI-generated SEO content, Google's update also focuses on individuals publishing low-quality content on websites with high reputation scores.
Google fights against low-quality content
Pandu Nayak, Google's vice president of search, said Google is sending a message to the web about eliminating spammy and unnatural behavior. He laid out three guiding principles for Google to focus on and ultimately consider spamming to reduce rankings. The first example was scale. Nayak said the website uses low-paid contractors and his AI generator to generate numerous substandard articles every day and strategically directs that content into search results. . In this regard, he alluded to the possibility of obituary spam.
According to Nayak, the second type of spamming is “exploiting the site's reputation.” Site reputation abuse occurs when an otherwise respectable website rents out part of its site for spam content. The Verge quoted Nayak as saying, “I'm not trying to name and shame anyone here, but why are there coupons and why does the entire site look irrelevant and AI-generated? I'm sure you've seen some sites that make you wonder. He said Google is giving those involved 60 days to remove such sites before changing their rankings.
The third is “abuse of expired domains.” This happens when someone buys a top-ranking abandoned domain and embeds obscene content into it to push it to the top of searches.