Google claims that AI-generated content violates its guidelines.

AI-generated content violates its guidelines

According to Search Advocate John Mueller, content written automatically using AI writing tools violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

According to Google's webmaster standards, text written automatically utilizing AI writing tools is considered spam, according to Search Advocate John Mueller.

In answer to an inquiry concerning GPT-3 AI writing tools, this topic was discussed during a recent Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout.

There’s a debate in the SEO community about the use of GPT-3 tools and whether they’re acceptable from Google’s point of view.

According to Mueller, AI-generated content falls under the category of auto-generated content, which could result in a manual punishment.

However, without the help of human reviewers, Google's systems may be unable to recognize AI-generated content.

As we'll see later in this essay, AI writing tools have real applications, and many reputable firms use them without trouble.

Let's start with Mueller's response to a query concerning Google's attitude toward the usage of these tools.

Google's Webmaster Guidelines prohibit the use of automatically generated content.

Content authored by computers is deemed automatically generated, regardless of the methods employed to make it.

Google's attitude toward auto-generated material has long been clear, as Mueller points out:

"For us, this would still fall within the category of automatically created material, which we've had in the Webmaster Guidelines virtually since the beginning."

And people have been creating material on their own in a variety of ways. For us, utilizing machine learning technologies to generate material is effectively the same as tossing words about, looking up synonyms, or using the old translation tactics. That sort of thing.

My suspicion is that the material quality is slightly higher than with the very old school technologies, but it's still automatically created content for us, which means it violates the Webmaster Guidelines. As a result, we'd classify that as spam."

Is it possible for Google to detect AI-generated content?

A follow-up question concerns Google's ability to recognize information generated by machine learning tools.

Can Google tell the difference between human-written material and machine-written content?

Mueller makes no assertions regarding Google automatically detecting AI-written content.

However, if Google's webspam team discovers it, they are entitled to take action.

"I'm afraid I can't make that claim." However, if we notice something that is automatically generated, the webspam team can take appropriate action.

And I'm not sure how the future will unfold there, but I imagine it will be a bit of a cat and mouse game, where people will do things and get away with it for a while, until the webspam team catches up and addresses the problem on a larger scale, just like with any other of these technologies.

We still consider it to be automatically created content based on our recommendation. I believe that this is something that will expand through time and become more of a tool for individuals. Similar to how you might use machine translation as a starting point for creating a translated version of a website but still go over it by hand.

And perhaps, in the future, these AI tools will improve in such a manner that you can use them to be more efficient in your writing or to ensure that you're writing correctly, similar to the spelling and grammar checking tools that are also based on machine learning. But I'm not sure what the future holds."

Google, according to Mueller, does not take into account how AI writing tools are used.

He goes on to say that using them in any capacity is considered spam.

“Currently it’s all against the webmaster guidelines. So, in our opinion, if we came across something like that, the webspam team would consider it spam."

How Does This Affect Your Website?

Here's what the leader of SEJ's editorial staff has to say about Mueller's statement and what it implies for your website.

"I believe the most important conclusion from this Q&A is that Google's algorithms are unable to detect text generated by language models like GPT-3," Miranda Miller, Sr. Managing Editor at Search Engine Journal, explains.

"The message here is that the webspam team may take action if Google identifies automatically created content. But this isn't about the article spinners from 2003."

"Media, universities, and other organizations are using artificial intelligence for research automation and cross-referencing, crawling and classifying content in a variety of languages to identify emerging trends, generating article and paper summaries, fact-checking, crunching data, and even writing full articles," she says.

"In 2014, the Associated Press began utilizing AI to generate stories." Using AI to help content creators overcome language and literacy challenges, increase the quality of their writing, and more is not new, according to Miller.

"These are excellent results. Wouldn't it be weird for Google to prohibit webmasters and content creators from using AI to improve the user experience while they themselves use it heavily?" she continues