Google never says it de-ranks AI content. Here is what its own E-E-A-T, helpful content and spam policy documentation actually says, and how to publish AI-assisted content without getting flagged.
How this article was written: No AI was used to generate this content. It is written from Google's own published documentation and my own experience publishing content for agencies and small businesses.
When it comes to using AI inside documents, blog articles and website content, Google has published a handful of pages that tell us what to write about, how to position it, and what not to do. This is what those pages actually say, and what I do with them.
Does Google de-rank AI content?
Google does not specifically state that it decreases the value of, or de-ranks, AI-generated content. It would also be counterintuitive for them to do so, because they use it themselves. We are still left with something of a black box: create the content, publish it, and see how it performs.
But there are sources we can make reasonable conjectures from. In Google's article from February 8, 2023, "Google Search's guidance about AI-generated content," they state:
Google's ranking systems aim to reward original, high-quality content that demonstrates qualities of what we call E-E-A-T.
That is expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
The four parts of E-E-A-T
How Google weighs each one is a mystery, but it gives us something to work with.
Expertise. If you can prove that the author or the website has a foundation in the topic being discussed, that gets weighed in how the content ranks.
Experience. Quoted, first-hand experience: "this is a case we worked on," "this is a client result we got," "we tested this," "out of a thousand people we interviewed." Those are things only you, as the creator of the content, can state for a fact.
Authoritativeness. How much your brand, site or author is known and trusted as a real leader in the field. Peer recognition, other sites quoting you, brand reputation, clear author bios with credentials and background, citations from respected media outlets or academic groups pointing back to your brand, your profile, your about page, awards.
Trustworthiness. Google's way of measuring how safe, accurate, reliable and honest you are. Keep content up to date. Keep the site secure with a valid SSL certificate and HTTPS. Source from reputable places. Do not be deceptive with clickbait or shady ads.
Google is in the business of answering people's questions. If the answer it surfaces in AI results, quoting your website, is wrong, then Google gets punished for surfacing bad information. They have every incentive to surface high-quality information.
Where AI content crosses into spam
Google is always watching for spam policy violations, which include using automation to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating rankings. They leave that deliberately a little vague, but they also say:
It's important to recognize that not all use of automation, including AI generation, is spam. Automation has long been used to generate helpful content such as sports scores, weather forecasts, and transcripts.
They recognize automation as a valuable tool. They also recognize that an ever-growing pile of non-human-generated content to crawl is, in the long run, a detriment to their platform and their profitability.
From "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content":
Google's automated ranking systems are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information that's created to benefit people and not content that's created to manipulate search engine rankings.
Self-evaluate your content
Google actively encourages self-evaluation. Look at the questions you are trying to answer and check that the answer is helpful and reliable. Some of the questions they list:
- Does the content provide a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond the obvious?
- Does the main heading or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
- Does the main heading or page title avoid exaggerating or being shocking in nature?
- Is this the sort of page you'd want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Is the content mass-produced by, or outsourced to, a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages don't get as much attention or care?
They also care about experience: the page should load fast. But they keep hammering the same point, people-first content, and they disincentivize search-engine-first content.
Things that do not work:
- Summarizing what other people are saying without adding value.
- Hitting a word count because you read somewhere that Google prefers one. There is no preferred word count.
- Changing dates on pages to seem fresh without substantial changes.
Who, how, and why
Google suggests asking three questions about any piece of content: who created it, how was it created, and why was it created.
Who. Is it evident to visitors who authored the content? Do the bylines lead to more information about that author, their background and their qualifications?
How. You can publish AI-generated or AI-assisted content, but it is suggested that you share the details of the process and how AI was involved. Disclose the generation or summarization. A research article quotes its sources and highlights its research process; do the same, and explain why AI was used, under something like "How was this created?"
Why. Was this made to help a person, or to game a ranking?
Spam policies worth knowing
Under "Spam policies for Google Web Search," Google uses a mix of automated systems and human review. Several things to avoid:
Cloaking. "Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content to users and search engines with the intent to manipulate search rankings and mislead users."
Doorway abuse. "Doorway abuse is when sites or pages are created to rank for specific similar search queries. They lead users to intermediate pages that are not as useful as the final destination." Examples include multiple websites with slight variations of the URL, multiple domain names, or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page.
Hacked content. Code injections, page injections, content injections and spammy redirects. Some of these mechanisms have legitimate uses, so be careful with each one.
Expired domain abuse.
Hidden text and link abuse. Text not visible to the user: hidden behind images, white text on a white background.
Keyword stuffing. "Keyword stuffing refers to the practice of filling a web page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate rankings in Google Search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, unnaturally or out of context." A list of phone numbers with no added value, or repeating the same phrase until it sounds unnatural.
They also list link spam, machine-generated traffic, malicious practices, misleading functionality, scaled content abuse, scraping, site reputation abuse, sneaky redirects, thin affiliation and user-generated spam.
What I actually do with this
Google says publicly that it wants human-generated content. What you can infer is that they ultimately want unique, valuable content, and whatever means it takes to get there, they are fine with. If you can generate a genuinely unique take on a topic, you can still use AI in the writing, because the content is coming from your experience and perspective. Interject quotes, case results, studies, analytics only you have access to, real-world data the model cannot pull from. That is what gets rewarded.
Use AI generation as a percentage or a part of your process, then ask honest questions about it:
- Did the AI generate the core idea of this topic, or did I?
- Is there one keyword I am chasing, or is there a particular customer I am writing this for? Am I speaking to one person?
The dangerous assumption is writing for the keyword and assuming the audience is Google, and that Google will simply put you in front of the right people. That is the trap many marketers, content creators, copywriters and businesses fall into now that AI generation makes the old content process seem obsolete.
The reverse is actually true. In a world of regenerated and regurgitated content, unique experience, perspective and authorship become the most valuable resource. Stay human, and use the tools. Do not let them use you.
Works cited
- Google. "Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content." Google Search Central. developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
- Google. "Google Search's Guidance About AI-Generated Content." Google Search Central Blog, 8 Feb. 2023. developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/google-search-and-ai-content
- Google. "New Ways to Tackle Spam and Low-Quality, Unoriginal Content on Search." Google Search Central Blog, 5 Mar. 2024. developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies
- Google. "Spam Policies for Google Web Search." Google Search Central. developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies
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