Using AI to Write Website Content? Google Has a Few Things to Say

There is a good chance AI is already somewhere in your website content process.

Maybe it helps with the first draft. Maybe it cleans up a page written by your team. Or perhaps it is being used to turn a list of ideas into a full blog post.

Google does not have a problem with that by itself.

Its latest guidance on generative AI content is much more about what gets published and why it was created. AI can be useful for research and for giving original material some structure. The trouble starts when a website begins producing page after page simply because an AI tool can do it quickly. Google says that kind of scaled content can fall under its spam policy.

What matters most is the page visitors eventually see.

A Good-Looking AI Draft Can Still Be Wrong

This is probably the easiest part to overlook.

A draft can read well on the first pass while still getting an important detail wrong.

Google notes that generative models work differently from a database or a source that provides verified information. They predict likely sequences of words from their training data. That can lead to what are commonly called hallucinations.

For a business website, that can become a real problem.

An inaccurate figure in a blog is one issue. A wrong price, technical explanation, or service claim can create a much more serious problem for a business.

Have someone on the team check the important details against the original information.

The surrounding page deserves a review as well.

Your page title needs a look. So does the meta description. These details are easy to overlook, but they are included in Google’s guidance too.

The Volume Trap

The bigger concern appears when that workflow gets repeated at scale.

Suppose a company has 20 topics it wants to cover. Someone feeds those topics into an AI tool and gets 20 articles back. That might be a perfectly reasonable starting point.

Now imagine doing the same thing for 500 keywords.

The website suddenly has hundreds of new pages. But are those pages actually useful?

Some may repeat the same information. Others may be little more than keyword variations. Others could end up offering little beyond information readers can already find on existing pages.

Google specifically warns that generating many pages with AI or similar tools without adding value for users can violate its scaled content abuse policy.

AI can make producing pages much faster, but speed alone doesn’t give those pages a reason to exist.

That makes AI a poor substitute for having something worthwhile to say.

More pages are not automatically better for SEO.

1. What Should Businesses Do With AI, Then?

That does not make AI useless for this kind of work.

Rough notes can also be fed into AI to help organize the initial structure.

Those are useful jobs.

The important part is what comes next.

Bring in the information that only the business really knows. Draw on projects the business has actually worked on. Explain how a service works in the real world. Include customer questions that keep coming up. Check the details. Rewrite anything that sounds generic.

That is where a draft starts becoming a piece of content that belongs on your website rather than something that could have appeared on anyone else’s.

2. Should You Tell Readers AI Was Used?

In some cases, readers may also benefit from knowing how the material was produced. This matters more when automation was responsible for a significant part of the work.

An AI note on every standard blog post would be excessive.

The decision really comes down to what the page contains and how it was produced.

A business report produced largely through automation may benefit from explaining the process. A blog where AI was only used to organize notes is a different case.

E-commerce sites have another set of rules to keep in mind. Google points businesses toward its Merchant Center requirements for AI-created images and product information. That includes adding the required IPTC metadata to AI-generated images and identifying AI-generated product titles in Merchant Center.

A Quick Check Before Publishing AI-Assisted Content

1. Is it accurate?

Check the claims, links, and product details.

2. Does it say anything useful?

There should be a reason for someone to read the page beyond the fact that a keyword was being targeted.

3. What did we add?

Original examples or expert input can make a big difference.

4. Did we check the smaller details?

Also check the title and image details before publishing.

5. Would we publish this if search rankings did not exist?

That last question is often the most revealing one.

AI is going to remain part of how websites create content. Google is not asking businesses to pretend otherwise. Its guidance simply puts the responsibility back where it belongs: on the quality of the final page.

Use AI to save time. Just do not let the ability to produce content quickly become the reason your website is filled with it.

Content Source:  t.ly/fmPK9