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Google’s webmaster guidelines state that AI generated content is spam and could result in your website receiving a manual penalty. However, Google can’t access this content without help from human reviewers. This is why many reputable content management organizations are using these tools without any issues.

How’s Google view the use of AI tools?

Google clearly states in their webmaster guidelines that AI generated content is against their policies. It doesn’t matter what tools you’ve used to create it. Sure, there are many different ways of automatically generating the content, but Google believes that you’re simply shuffling words around, finding synonyms to use, or using translation tricks. Some may argue that the content’s better than when AI tools were first being used. Nevertheless, it’s still the same type of content and something that Google considers spam.

Can Google detect AI generated content?

Now that you know how Google feels about this content, you may wonder how it can identify whether a machine or learning tool has created it. Although Google doesn’t make any claims regarding how they can automatically detect this content, they do clearly state that once it’s found by their web spam team, the team can take action on it. Therefore you must get your content management under control today.

Google admits that they don’t know what the future of content management will bring, nor do they know how things will continue to evolve. However, those who specialize in this area agree that it’s become a bit of a cat and mouse game. Rest assured that Google’s web spam team will eventually catch up with those who do get away with it for a while.

Regardless of how advanced AI generated content may become, Google says that they’ll still see it for what it is. They aren’t against using AI as a tool,  but they still want to see some manual input in place.  For instance, they’re fine with allowing machines to translate a website because this website was initially written in the creator’s original language. Machines are there only to help others understand it better. Therefore if AI tools eventually evolve to the point that they make writing more efficient or help to ensure that you’re writing properly (e.g., spell check, grammar checking tools), Google isn’t going to fight against such advances.

It’s clear that Google plans to take into account how the tools are being used before they automatically slap a spam penalty on a website. However, the tools that are available today are seen as spam because they take care of the content management work for you. This is why when Google runs into AI generated content, they send their web spam team to check it out and give you a spam penalty. So, it’s important to be careful with your content management today.

What does this mean for your website?

Currently, Google’s algorithms can’t automatically detect content generated by language models (e.g., GPT-3). However, when Google does detect any such content, their web spam team will take action. This doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically get slapped with a penalty, though. There are many ways AI can be useful (e.g., research automation, crunching data, cross-referencing, fact-checking, crawling, identifying emerging trends, and classifying content).

In 2014 the Associated Press started using AI to generate stories. This shows that AI generated content isn’t new. Google seems to care more about whether you’re using it correctly (e.g., to overcome language and literacy barriers and improve the quality of writing). However, you still need content management help from humans today. For this, you can turn to us at the Local SEO Tampa Company in Tampa, FL.