The internet is drowning in cheap AI content, and Google has declared war. The March 2024 Core Update is mercilessly targeting pages birthed by bots and untouched by human creativity.
Over 40% of generic AI content has already been eradicated from top search pages.
But this is only the beginning.
Web domains rife with “lazy content” — pages produced by AI without original thought, face total annihilation. Entire domains will be delisted.
Google's crusade is relentless. Repetitive, unoriginal content is under siege. A strictly AI article? It's merely a hollow echo of existing content, adding nothing new. Duplicate content, by any other name - and Google isn't in the business of ranking reruns.
Google's Epic Battle Against Bland AI Content
Google's job is to keep the internet valuable, ensuring you find exactly what you seek. They excel at this task so much that we rarely question the reliability of the top search results it gives us.
We expect the first two articles to provide precisely the information we need.
Last year alone, Google invested over $100 billion to refine its algorithms, ensuring they fetch only the best, newest, and most relevant information. They make a quarter trillion dollars by outperforming all others in this arena.
For the past 25 years, Google has held a near monopoly on directing you to the best web pages for any search term.
Imagine, however, if you started seeing bland pages, repeating what you already know, every time you searched. You might reconsider using Google as your primary internet gateway.
Google cannot afford to start telling you what you already know. The March 2024 Core Update aims to prevent mediocre AI content from cluttering your search results.
Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product at Google Search, explains: “This update is more than just algorithm tweaks. . . Our focus is on ensuring valuable, relevant content rises to the top.”
Google will meticulously scrutinize websites featuring AI content to assess their value. If your content involves AI, it must still be unique and relevant.
This situation creates a challenging balance.
AI can enhance content in remarkable ways. When used responsibly, it can elevate your work to top-ranking pages. However, if your content appears overly reliant on AI, you risk being delisted.
The question remains: how do you leverage AI content to stay competitive without jeopardizing your place in Google listings?
Smaller Sites Penalized for Mass-Produced AI Content
Older websites are facing significant challenges, lacking the special pizzazz AI brings to newer content. Additionally, their older pages often contain outdated information, making them less valuable.
Smaller websites are also at risk. In their quest to expand, they are resorting to mass-produced AI-generated content. A decade ago, these sites would rely on content farms to produce hundreds of pages to appear more substantial. Today, they attempt to achieve the same with AI content.
This strategy comes with severe consequences. Even if a site avoids delisting, it can suffer dramatic drops in ranking and traffic due to being too “generic.”
Google's warning is clear: create content that is neither repetitive nor bland. The landscape demands high-quality, original content. Sites failing to meet these standards risk losing visibility, relevance, rankings, and most of all -- visitors.
Joining The Originality Revolution
- What steps should you take to avoid traffic losses due to Google's update?
- What strategies can you implement to retain or improve your rankings?
- What will my competition do? Can I use these changes to leapfrog them?
The good news is that Google is not waging a war against AI. It's waging a war against awful content. Since the first Google search was made in 1998 (for “Gerhard Casper,” president of Stanford at the time), Google has been dedicated to finding content that features originality and relevance.
As long as your content is original and relevant to the topic at hand, you don't have to worry. This creates a fantastic opportunity for those who strive to produce high-quality content, and a greater opportunity to those who use AI for this purpose.
By combining unique insights with AI enhancements, you can create captivating and top-ranking content.
Human-Like AI Content Still Misses the Mark
Some businesses are taking shortcuts by instructing their AI bots to write in a more human tone. They are leveraging new AI applications to make their AI-generated content appear more realistic.
It's not working.
While these pages may have an original "tone," they lack unique information and fail to provide more relevant content to the reader. If a tofu steak tastes like plastic, adding better sauces isn't going to be a game changer.
This is a serious warning: relying on superficial improvements to AI content won't suffice.
Genuine originality and relevance are essential. Without these elements, your content risks being overlooked or penalized. Ensure your AI content is truly valuable and informative, and you can accomplish that in this one simple action:
The Ultimate Content Hack: Write First, Enhance Later
There is one surefire way to come off as original:
Compose the original draft of the article yourself, and then use AI to enhance what you've already written.
By providing your AI tool with context through your original article, it will detect patterns in your work and expand on them. This approach ensures that even the AI enhancements will carry your originality.
Instructing AI to enhance what you did goes much further than merely telling it to make its generated text "look human."
Writing the article first gives it the best context to provide optimized titles, subtitles, meta descriptions, and a cohesive tone for the body of your text. This method guarantees a unique and engaging final product.
Write from Experience: Your Key to Winning Google's Favor
The next step is to write your content as the expert you are in what you do.
Nobody knows your product as well as you. Nobody understands your business as deeply as you do. Your unique experiences, the choices you've made, the mishaps and corrections you've endured, the risks you've taken, and the people you've met along the way are all invaluable.
Present your expertise, and you will score high marks on the Googlemeter while providing more unique and valuable content.
- Tell a story about how you learned something new.
- Share a quote you heard from someone or use one of your own.
- Talk about the industry from your own perspective.
- Relate an anecdote with a former boss, co-worker, client, or prospect.
The one thing AI content cannot replicate is human experience. Anecdotes, stories, jokes, quotes, and lessons learned on the job—these are uniquely yours.
Data is also a great asset. Find a statistic and work with it. Create an image that represents the statistic. Use numbers at the top of your content. Facts deliver instant value to readers by quantifying what you are trying to convey.
Embrace your unique perspective and experiences. Let AI enhance your authentic content, ensuring it resonates with readers and stands out.
Rise to the Top: Unleash the Power of Updated Content
- What can we do immediately to ensure our existing content remains compliant?
- How do we perform a content audit for existing AI-generated content?
- What competitive advantage can we gain from this update?
As older content loses its luster, updated content shines brightly. Older content that has been changed to reflect today's reality ranks really well.
Besides, isn't it easier to clean up something already made than to create something from scratch?
You can adapt your content strategy to AI without having to create new content!
The great news is that most of your older content was already human-written! It's the best source for original content.
By taking each article, updating older statistics, adding some of your unique experience, and using AI content tools to enhance the titles, subtitles, and smoothness of the text, your content hits the sweet spot of Google: Human-made, AI-enhanced, original, and relevant.
Which content do I start with?
Go to your Google Analytics and see how all your pages are doing. Copy and paste every title and link. Sort them all by topics.
For every topic, start to update your articles according to the topic it's part of. By creating “topic clusters,” you take another step ahead of your competition to cash in on the most recent trends of modern search standards.
AI Content Excellence: Crafting and Updating for Better Rankings
- How can we adapt our content workflows to comply with new search standards?
- Are there any low-cost content strategies we should focus on post-update?
AI is the new salt and pepper for content: If you don't use enough, your dish won't be as tasty. If you use too much, you can throw the whole thing out.
But use the right amount, and your meal just went five stars.
Learning how to use AI for content is easy and exciting. Simple workflows can be developed to utilize AI to enhance what is already your unique flavor of content.
A strategy of using AI to update older articles, along with using AI to improve the content you are currently developing, is the best way to become more competitive by presenting your audience with riveting and educational material.
With the right balance, your content will not only captivate your audience but also stand out in a crowded digital landscape.
Unleash the Power of AI Content Compliance Tools
- What free or low-cost tools can we use to assess content compliance?
- What tools can help us monitor AI content performance post-update?
If your content doesn't comply with the new Google Core Standards, you need to know before it's too late. There are two tools you can use:
1. originality.ai
This tool detects the likelihood that an article was machine-made. It serves as a barometer to determine the extent of AI content. If the likelihood is 100%, it's an AI-generated article that no one touched. If the likelihood is 0%, it was completely human-written.
Assume that Google has a similar application included in its crawler as it analyzes your web pages to decide how each one will rank.
A score of around 50% implies human and machine coordination. That's good. Before you put an article on your site, run it through this tool to confirm it's not blatantly machine-made.
2. Google Analytics
Use GA to keep a close eye on your traffic.
As long as you keep your content original and relevant, update older pages, and organize them into relevant topics, you should see a steady rise. If you observe a decline, run your articles through an AI checker to ensure your business isn't publishing generic AI content.
By checking Google Analytics daily, you can confirm that your content consistently meets the standard. If changes are needed, you will know right away.
Seize the Moment: Winning with Fundamental Content Strategies
Creating content for viewers, leads, and new business has evolved . . . somewhat.
The technology changes and the rules change.
But like sports, the fundamentals remain the same.
It brings me back to the first World Baseball Classic in 2006. While the smart money was on teams from Cuba and the Dominican Republic, something was brewing in an unexpected place.
The Japanese team focused on the fundamentals. Opposing teams and fans alike were mesmerized by how the Japanese would warm up so enthusiastically before each game. When their pitcher threw a strikeout, in a feat not seen in baseball for decades, the players threw the ball around the infield to stay sharp.
By sticking to the fundamentals, they shocked the world by defeating Mexico and Cuba to become baseball's first world champions.
That's how your content will win! By sticking to the fundamentals of keeping your content original and useful to the reader, you will rise to the top, too!
Use AI tools to update older articles and refine new ones, ensuring they remain relevant and engaging. Embrace the potential of AI content to optimize your work while staying true to the fundamentals of originality and value.
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