Google Penalizes Use of AI Content Generator & AI Copywriting
Do you think you have it all figured out when it comes to content and copywriting? Are you someone who pays the monthly subscription for the use of an AI content generator or some sort of AI copywriting service? Sure, it may help you check the box of getting something written and off your plate, but at what cost?
If you did a search for an AI content generator or software that does AI copywriting for you, you’d find a wide variety of options. Artificial intelligence is a powerful technology but abusing it comes with a cost that can be incredibly damaging to a business.
Many of these artificial intelligence platforms have clever and convincing copy on their website that will tell you how simple it is to use and that it creates plagiarism-free content for you. What they didn’t tell you is that Google is getting smarter by the day, and their own AI can detect when you use an AI content generator or some form of AI copywriting and can penalize your website.
What does this mean? Well, if you look at Google’s terms and guidelines, the use of AI content generation or AI copywriting is prohibited. Therefore, Google can slap your website with penalties that prevent it from ranking or even showing up through their search engine. Obviously, if you sell products or services from your website, this can drastically hurt your sales and revenue.
The last thing you need is for your website to be penalized and punished for trying to pull a fast one and using an AI content generator and AI copywriting.
Now, you’re probably scratching your head about what to do next or sweating bullets if you’re currently using an AI content generator. Let’s dive a little deeper.
Why Do People Use an AI Content Generator?
The consensus of why people use an AI content generator or AI copywriting is quite simple — they don’t like to write, aren’t good at it, or don’t have the time to write a piece of content, edit it, and then publish it.
Using an AI content generator helps provide you with content that mimics an experience as if a real human wrote it.
The Good
There are some reasons people prefer to go the route of an AI content generator or AI copywriting because it can help overcome writer’s block, rewrite content, create SEO-friendly content and copy, speed up the writing process, and removes the task of writing from your plate.
That all sounds great, right? But there are also some negatives associated with using an AI content generator.
The Bad
With anything that has pros, there are also cons. People assume that using an AI content generator will spit out content that they can simply paste into their website. Sure, they can do that, but it’s not advised.
Artificial intelligence isn’t perfect, and the information they pull from the internet may not be accurate. When using such a tool, you will still need to check for errors, fact-check information, sometimes sentences won’t make sense, information can be repetitively written in a single piece of content, and research to back up claims is not hyperlinked.
What you’re left with is what Google considers “black hat” SEO. This is where an AI content generator stuffs keywords into content or something called “article spinning,” where AI simply takes a piece of content and re-writes the existing content.
Remember one thing, if you put out poor information (whether you personally write it or not), it can negatively affect your business and hurt your trustworthiness moving forward in the eye of readers and consumers.
You Still Need a Blog on Your Website Though
All that being said, every company that has a website can benefit from having well-written content and copy on their website (just not ripped from an AI content generator). For instance, a blog can do many positive things for your business.
Having a blog on your website can:
- Build traffic
- Increase sales conversions
- Boost site authority
- Bring your customers value
- Improve trustworthiness
These are just SOME of the things a blog can do to help your business. I recommend you read my article on the 7 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Blog.
But using an AI content generator can take all those things to toss them out the window if Google finds you’re cheating the system. Should they detect you’re using an AI content generator, they could very well penalize your website and completely destroy any progress you’ve made through creating content and writing copy that converts (even if you’ve written your own content and copy in the past).
A question you need to ask yourself should be, “Is the use of an AI content generator and AI copywriting worth the risk?”
Can Google Penalize Your Website for Using AI Copywriting?
As mentioned earlier, Google looks at content written by AI as “black hat” SEO. According to Google, the use of AI to write content is considered spam and, in an effort to protect readers and consumers, can penalize a website that it deems “abusive.”
If you look at the Google webmaster guidelines, you will find that Google deems the use of AI-generated content against their policies and can penalize your website.
Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, has said, “For us, these would, essentially, still fall into the category of automatically generated content which is something we’ve had in the Webmaster Guidelines since almost the beginning.
And people have been automatically generating content in lots of different ways. And for us, if you’re using machine learning tools to generate your content, it’s essentially the same as if you’re just shuffling words around, or looking up synonyms, or doing the translation tricks that people used to do. Those kind of things.
My suspicion is maybe the quality of content is a little bit better than the really old school tools, but for us it’s still automatically generated content, and that means for us it’s still against the Webmaster Guidelines. So, we would consider that to be spam.”
Here’s the thing… people will always try to work the system if there’s a way. However, if you know anything about Google, you’d know that they have updates several times every day, and eventually, one of those updates could catch your website and penalize it. It may not be today, tomorrow, or even next month, but the chance of your business getting caught using an AI content generator and AI copywriting is fairly high and not worth the risk.
Something else to think about is that Google wants the best user experience. If millions of websites start using an AI content generator and putting out bad information through AI, Google is going to come out with more updates than you can shake a stick at and penalize all those sites. Again, Google will catch up with the technology and websites using AI for content spinning. Additionally, content spinning can get your site pushed to the back of the line since all an AI content generator is doing is taking content already online and changing up the words. It’s not adding any value to the content that’s already out on the internet.
You Use an AI Content Generator — Now What?
If you like to go to Vegas and play the odds, you don’t need to do anything. But most people who bet in Vegas come home with less money than they came with. Are you willing to risk a business you’ve worked years to grow only to have Google penalize you to the point nothing you do shows up in the search results? Personally, I don’t believe that’s something you’d want to risk.
Are you currently using an AI content generator? If so, I’d consider stopping immediately before it’s too late. Additionally, it would be recommended that any AI content you’ve posted be rewritten by an actual person to help prevent Google from penalizing the content.
Cancel your subscription to the AI content generator and move onto a better plan that has worked from the very beginning and still allows you to unload your content and copy needs to someone else. What is that plan? You’ll find it below.
Don’t Risk Using an AI Content Generator — Do THIS Instead
In the long run, your best bet is to hire a professional content writer or copywriter in your niche. They are experts at what they do and can curate the perfect piece of content or copy to suit the needs of your business.
There’s nothing like having a wordsmith on your team to make your life easier. You can hire one and have them be a part of your in-house team or save money by contracting one on a project-by-project basis (a much cheaper option).
Hiring a professional writing service will allow you to get better quality content and copy and prevent your business from getting penalized by Google. Additionally, a professional writer can tie in your brand, products, or services to further help improve sales conversions and grow your business rather than an AI content generator producing a vanilla piece of content or copy for you.
A professional writer can make your content and copy specific to your brand and make it feel authentic.
Related Article: What is a Wordsmith and Why Does Your Business Need One?
I’ve had brands reach out to me and ask why their content isn’t ranking or doing well on Google. After asking some probing questions, they mentioned they’ve been using an AI content generator in the past since they are terrible writers and don’t have time to struggle through producing something.
Another complaint they’ve had is that they spent a fair amount of time going in and editing what the AI content generator created (defeating the entire purpose of outsourcing content and taking it off your plate).
Not only did we rework the content they had on their site that the AI content generator produced, but we’ve also created new SEO-friendly content and copy for their website as well. And guess what? It ranked better and brought in more sales than the AI content generator.
What’s the moral of the story? The juice isn’t worth the squeeze at the end of the day regarding an AI content generator and AI copywriting. Nothing can replace a human who’s an expert at what they do.
If we can be of any help to you or your business, please don’t hesitate to contact our writing service brands below. We’d love to show you what it’s like to work with a professional writer.
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