Will articles and other content generated by AI be referenced on Google? The question had been raised for several months among natural referencing specialists. The Mountain View company clarified on Wednesday February 8 its policy concerning its new uses in a blog article addressed to developers.
Preferred content quality
Articles and web pages may be referenced within the search engine as long as the content presented is of high quality. To identify the overall quality of a page to be referenced in its index, Google bases itself on four major notions called EEAT for expertise, experience, authority and reliability. “We focus on the quality of the content, rather than how it is produced”assures the Web giant.
Generating articles or web pages automatically will be authorized to the extent that the content does not seek to “manipulate ranking in search results.” Attempting to win seats in this way would be a violation of spam rules. Sports results, weather forecasts… To support its position, Google claims that sites using automatically generated content did not wait for the advent of AI to exist.
To ensure that false information does not invade the web, Google will continue to rely on what it calls “quality sources.” Emphasis will be placed on information relating to health, finance or even civic issues (particularly the electoral process). Content questioning facts contradicting a “well-established consensus on important topics“, are not highlighted by the algorithm.
Report content produced by AI
Google recommends indicating the presence of text produced by artificial intelligence or automatically. “Information about artificial intelligence or automation is useful for content where it is questionable how it was created. Consider adding this information when you can reasonably expect it“, advises the search engine. Finally, giving an article produced by AI the signature of an author is not a good solution, according to Google.
The new recommendations of the American firm come at the height of the boom in generative artificial intelligence. With a few lines of code and web hosting, it is possible to automate the production of content and index it in search engines. The news site BuzzFeed notably announced at the end of January that it would use the technologies behind ChatGPT in the coming months to “open a new era of creativity” by creating “AI-inspired content“.