Is AI content bad for SEO?

The short answer

No, AI content is not bad for SEO by itself. Google says its focus is on the quality of content, rather than how content is produced. The problem is unhelpful or mass-produced content, and that is a problem whether a person or a model wrote it.

Three points from Google’s own guidance:

• Using AI is allowed. Google says appropriate use of AI or automation is not against its guidelines.
• Using AI gives no special gains. In Google’s words: “It’s just content.”
• Using AI to produce pages mainly to rank is spam. That is a violation of Google’s spam policies.

What Google’s policy says

Google set out its position in February 2023 in Google Search’s guidance about AI-generated content. The post says Google’s ranking systems aim to reward original, high-quality content that demonstrates E-E-A-T: expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. It then draws one line: “Using automation—including AI—to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policies.”

The same post says not all use of automation is spam. It gives sports scores, weather forecasts and transcripts as examples of helpful content that automation has long produced.

Google’s current documentation page, guidance on using generative AI content on your website, says generative AI can be particularly useful when researching a topic and for adding structure to original content. It also says that using generative AI tools to generate many pages without adding value for users may violate the spam policy on scaled content abuse.

That policy defines scaled content abuse as generating many pages for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users. It says this is typically about large amounts of unoriginal content that provides little to no value to users, “no matter how it’s created”. The spam policies page says sites that violate the policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all.

Where AI content does hurt

AI is not the cause in any of these cases. It just makes each one quick and cheap to do, so they are the things to check for before you publish.

Thin, unoriginal pages at scale

This is the case the scaled content abuse policy describes. Its examples include generating many pages with generative AI without adding value, stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding value, and creating many pages that make little or no sense to a reader but contain search keywords. Google’s helpful content page also lists warning signs for search engine-first content. Two of them: using extensive automation to produce content on many topics, and mainly summarising what others have to say without adding much value.

Factual errors

Google’s generative AI guidance says generative models do not retrieve facts but predict a likely sequence of words, so their output may contain inaccuracies. It says it is critical to manually fact-check and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing. That includes title elements, meta descriptions, structured data and image alt text.

No first-hand experience

One of Google’s people-first questions asks whether content clearly demonstrates first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge, such as expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place. A model has not used your product or run your test. If nobody adds that, the page has nothing a reader cannot find elsewhere.

Duplicated or plagiarised passages

AI output can repeat wording that already exists. We explain how in does ChatGPT plagiarize? Google’s self-assessment questions ask whether content that draws on other sources avoids simply copying or rewriting them. Its spam policy on scraping covers copying content from other sites, modifying it only slightly, and republishing it. Copied passages are also a problem outside search. See is plagiarism illegal?

What Google says vs common myths

One thing Google does not say is whether it can tell that a page was written with AI. We cover that in can Google detect AI content?

An editorial checklist for AI-assisted content

Run each draft through these steps before it goes into the CMS.

1. Fact-check every claim. Check names, numbers, dates, quotations and links against a primary source. Remove what you cannot confirm.
2. Add first-hand experience. Put in what only your team knows: your own tests, data, screenshots, examples and opinions.
3. Add sources. Link the page each fact came from. Google’s expertise questions ask whether content shows clear sourcing and evidence of the expertise involved.
4. Edit for the reader. Cut filler and repeated points. Answer the question early. Ask the question Google asks: will someone leave feeling they have learned enough to achieve their goal?
5. Check for plagiarism. AI output can repeat existing wording. Run a check, then quote and cite, or rewrite, anything that matches. See how to paraphrase without plagiarizing.
6. Review the metadata. Google’s guidance says the review also applies to titles, meta descriptions, structured data and alt text.
7. Disclose where readers would expect it. See the next section.
8. Ask why the page exists. Google calls “Why” perhaps the most important question. If the honest answer is “to attract search visits”, rethink the page.

Should you disclose AI use?

Google suggests it where readers would expect it. Its helpful content page says to think about “Who, How, and Why” for each piece of content. Under “How”, it says AI or automation disclosures are useful for content where someone might think “How was this created?”, and to consider adding them when it would be reasonably expected.

The page lists three questions to ask when automation substantially generates content:

• Is the use of automation, including AI generation, self-evident to visitors through disclosures or in other ways?
• Are you providing background about how automation or AI generation was used to create content?
• Are you explaining why automation or AI was seen as useful to produce content?

Under “Who”, Google strongly encourages accurate authorship information, such as bylines, where readers might expect it. It also warns against deceptive authorship, such as made-up names or false credentials that make content appear to be written by human experts. The 2023 post adds that giving AI an author byline is probably not the best way to make clear that AI was part of the process.

If a writer needs to credit an AI tool in a piece, see how to cite ChatGPT.

Checking a draft before you publish

Plagiarism Checker Plus runs a plagiarism check and an AI check in one report. The plagiarism checker links every matching source, so you can cite or rewrite the passage. The AI detector gives each sentence a likelihood of being AI-written, plus an overall score, so an editor knows where to look first.

The first check per tool is free up to 1,000 words without an account, and a free account includes 3,000 words a month. Your text is never used to train AI. Teams can check drafts with the Google Docs add-on or the Chrome extension, or connect their own systems through the API. Plans are on the pricing page.

An AI score is a probability, not proof, and it does not tell you how a page will rank. It should never be the only basis for rejecting a writer’s work. Use the report to find what needs a fact-check, a source or a rewrite. Whether the page helps the reader is still your call.