Google paves way for AI-produced content with new policy
On Sept. 16, Google updated the description of its helpful content system. The system is designed to help website administrators create content that will perform well on Google’s search engine.
Google doesn’t disclose all the means and ways it employs to “rank” sites, as this is at the heart of its business model and precious intellectual property, but it does provide tips on what should be in there and what shouldn’t.
Until Sept. 16, one of the factors Google focussed on was who wrote the content. It gave greater weighting to sites it believed were written by real humans in an effort to elevate higher quality, human-written content from that which is most likely written using an artificial intelligence (AI) tool such as ChatGPT.
It emphasized this point in its description of the helpful content system: “Google Search’s helpful content system generates a signal used by our automated ranking systems to better ensure people see original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”
However, in the latest version, eagle-eyed readers spotted a subtle change:
It seems content written by people is no longer a concern for Google, and this was then confirmed by a Google spokesperson, who told Gizmodo: “This edit was a small change […] to better align it with our guidance on AI-generated content on Search. Search is most concerned with the quality of content we rank vs. how it was produced. If content is produced solely for ranking purposes (whether via humans or automation), that would violate our spam policies, and we’d address it on Search as we’ve successfully done with mass-produced content for years.”
This, of course, raises several interesting questions: how is Google defining quality? And how will the
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