There has been a lot of talk about applications that can check social media content and decide whether or not it has been generated by AI. To date, I haven’t heard of anything that succeeds to any high degree of accuracy and I got to thinking, “Who cares?”

Obviously, if SEO efforts were being diluted by the inclusion of AI generated content, it would be a problem but Alphabet(Google), Meta (Facebook), Microsoft and X (Twitter) are all heavily involved with developing their own AI engines or “Chatbots” so why would they distance them from content their own creations provide?

Out of curiosity, I contacted Jonathan Mast who I consider to be an absolute Guru when it comes to all matters AI. His response came within minutes:

“Google has repeatedly confirmed that the method of content creation (AI or human) is not important – what matters is creating helpful, high-quality content for users. Here are several key statements and actions that demonstrate this:

Official Statements

In September 2023, Google made a significant change to their guidelines by removing the phrase “written by people, for people” and replacing it with “helpful content created for people in search results”[1]. This deliberate removal of the “written by people” requirement signaled Google’s acceptance of AI-generated content.

Danny Sullivan, Google Search Liaison, stated directly: “We haven’t said AI content is bad. We’ve said, pretty clearly, content written primarily for search engines rather than humans is the issue. That’s what we’re focused on”[10].

Recent Updates

The March 2024 Core Update further reinforced this stance by incorporating the Helpful Content system directly into Google’s core ranking systems[8]. This integration emphasizes that content quality and helpfulness are the primary factors, regardless of how the content is created.

## Quality Requirements

For content to perform well, it must:

– Demonstrate expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)[3]
– Provide value and satisfy user intent comprehensively[3]
– Focus on being helpful rather than manipulating search rankings[11]

The Google Search Quality Team explicitly stated: “The goal of Google’s ranking systems is to reward original and high-quality content that demonstrates the qualities of what we call E-A-T: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. By evaluating your content in this way, regardless of whether you use AI content or not, it’ll be easier to stay in line with what our systems aim to reward”[11].”

Citations:
[1] https://seo.ai/blog/google-helpful-content-guidelines-update-underlines-acceptance-of-ai-content
[2] https://www.o8.agency/blog/marketing-strategy/google-helpful-content-update-improve-your-seo
[3] https://www.whitepress.com/en/knowledge-base/2227/google-helpful-content
[4] https://on-page.ai/pages/helpful-content-update/
[5] https://www.stanventures.com/blog/google-helpful-content-algorithm-update/
[6] https://getgenie.ai/googles-ai-content-guidelines/
[7] https://www.mariehaynes.com/podcast-episodes/how-googles-helpful-content-system-has-radically-changed-search/
[8] https://www.amsive.com/insights/seo/googles-helpful-content-update-ranking-system-what-happened-and-what-changed-in-2024/
[9] https://www.positional.com/blog/helpful-content
[10] https://thriveagency.com/news/how-google-treats-ai-content-and-should-it-be-labeled/
[11] https://rockcontent.com/blog/google-core-update-penalize-ai-content/
[12] https://eseospace.com/does-google-accept-and-index-ai-written-content/
[13] https://www.theadfirm.net/is-ai-content-good-enough-for-google/
[14] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/truth-googles-ai-content-penalties-2024-lorenz-esposito-dn1pe
[15] https://itseeze.com/blog/what-google-s-latest-core-update-means-for-ai-generated-content/
[16] https://www.seo.com/blog/google-and-ai-content/

So there we have it. Google does not care how content is created so long as it is helpful and high-quality for users. That said, AI can hallucinate so always check your generated content for errors or omissions.

Jonathan Mast, I cannot thank you enough for this and all the other great information you provide. (Jonathan’s invaluable web site can be found at: https://whitebeardstrategies.com/)

If you need help with prompts for ChatGPT or other chatbots go to PromptPal. It even helps with prompts for other AI based sites such as MidJourney, an image creation site.