Have you been using AI to generate your content? How has it been working for you? Increased rankings, decreased rankings? Well...Google released their guidance regarding AI for content creation on February 9, 2023. In case y'all missed it, Mistie goes over it in this episode. And if you want to read it yourself, here's the link: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/google-search-and-ai-content?__s=mdtcd7yvg5hhdtri7moh. Basically, Google rewards websites with useful, helpful, original, expert, experienced, authoritative, and trustworthy content. If AI plays a role in that then ok. If you're copying and pasting straight from AI then not so ok. Learn how to use AI and follow Google's guidance. It's all covered in this episode.
If your website has been affected by using AI content - good or bad - I want to know! Leave me a voice message!
Happy Website-ing!
Episode Transcript
Hey y'all welcome back to another episode of the Web Presence Rockstars podcast with me Mistie Smith of Powered by RIO. I hope you guys have been well I know it's been two months. Wow, two months since I had my last episode. And yeah, I've been doing a lot of things since then I know I always say that, but I really have. And let's just think of this episode, as kind of a clarification, continuation, validation, recommendation any other ation you can think of about using AI for content creation. I didn't mean to do that. But that kind of is cool how it worked out with the ation. Anyway.
Um, so last time we spoke, I went through Canva's AI tool, and told you guys or showed you guys and gave you examples of how I didn't think that AI using a for content creation would really help you with SEO. And I gave you some examples. And I told you why. So if you didn't listen to that one, press pause, go back and listen to that one, my very last podcast before this one. And take a listen to that. Because today, I will go over how Google has now come out with their AI content creation guidelines. And you knew they would y'all at least I did. Because there were so many questions and concerns and rumors and you know, this and that and the other and everyone going ooh, I'm gonna use AI to create my content and, oh, my website's going to be the best ever and, also with the creation of other AI engines. So like chat GPT has gone to version 4.0. There's like WordPress plugins. Google has released Bard B-A-R-D Bard. And last week, I got an invitation to be on waitlist. Yay, I'm a VIP with an invitation to be on the waitlist. But just a few minutes ago, right before I hit record, I got an email where I think that I am no longer wait listed. It says Bard and AI experience. It's your turn to try Bard. Then it has a button that says take it for a spin. So maybe oh yeah, this message was sent to you because you signed up to the Bard waitlist. So I am no longer wait listed. So I'm going to try that. And wow, what a great topic for my next podcast is all about Bard.
But today, it's all about a clarification. And all the ations and all that about how you should be using AI for your content for SEO and on your websites. But I have been using the chat GPT just to play around with it, just to see what it was doing. I signed up for an account and all that kind of stuff. I'm not using the paid version. But there are some reasons that you can be using it for the good instead of trying to get ahead and all that all that kind of stuff.
The other day, I was launching a website. And it's a website that is hosted somewhere else not on my hosting. But I decided in my infinite wisdom to build the development site on my servers, because hey, you can just always move it over. I've moved it. I have moved from GoDaddy to GoDaddy. I've moved from GoDaddy to Siteground, from SiteGround to GoDaddy. Yeah, and this is a WordPress website by the way, so that makes it even bigger because it's WordPress. And for you guys who know how to move WordPress websites manually, then you know what I'm talking about. But my client was using Hostinger and no offense to Hostinger I think they're a good host. And they offer some good options, but they don't really have an easy way unless you have them do it themselves to migrate over. So I migrated, because I was scared and stressed out, I migrated from the dev server my dev hosting server to a subdomain on Hostinger just to see if it would work. So yay, it worked. I got it all over. And you know I followed my main instructions that I've always used for years and you know, it worked perfectly fine. So then it was all ready and I was ready to move it up to the domain. Well, here's the thing, Hostinger has an H panel and not a cPanel. And I'm used to hosting platforms that use cPanel. So there is an Installatron and you move it and you don't have to do the search and replace and all that kind of stuff. And maybe even with SiteGround, you can move it up. And you still probably have to do the search and replace sometimes, but which I did the last time I moved something to SiteGround into a subdomain and moved it up. But um, I was like, I'm gonna have to do this thing completely manually. So I did a Google search of how to how to do this on Hostinger. And it kept telling me this weird way that I'm like, why am I going to do it that way. That doesn't make any sense at all. Because it's like, oh, save your SEO. And I think it was because the way I was searching it, it was giving me ways to move the subdomain up to the main domain without losing any SEO of the subdomain thinking that the subdomain was some kind of big website that had lots of content and had been around forever. And that's not what I was doing. I don't really care about the SEO of the subdomain, I was more worried about the SEO of the main domain, which wasn't even going to be affected. It was only pretty much going to get better once I moved the new site up. So I was like, huh, and by the way, y'all it's like, one in the morning when I'm doing this because I can't sleep. Because I need to move this website up, right. So I go, Huh, let me ask Chat GPT what they say, because I had an idea in my head, I had an idea of how to do it. And very similar to how I moved it over to the subdomain. But you know, I had it in my head and everything else I was searching was like, don't do it that way. And I was like, well, that's weird. So I typed it into ChatGPT. And lo and behold, ChatGPT told me how to do it, which, ironically enough is the way that I had in my head to do it. So I was validated with my point. Yay. I'm as smart as ChatGPT. Maybe, I don't know. But we had the same answer, which was kind of cool, I think. And then I moved it over. And it all worked, like with no glitches or anything. And I was like, wow, that's way cool. Thank you, ChatGPT.
So there are a lot of reasons to use ChatGPT, or any kind of AI if you're asking questions. Now, again, it does come with that disclaimer that says, you know, this may not work and you know, this might not be right. And because I guess what they d0 - well, yeah, they kind of scour like Wikipedia sites and other like prominent websites with information on how to do things. So if you're asking it to give you some code, like if your brain freezes, and you're like, how do I write, you know, the CSS for whatever you're doing, like bold letters, or whatever. You type that in, and it'll give you back the code. I mean, I know that’s super simple. And I know everyone pretty much probably knows how to do that. But it was just a crazy example. But you can do that. And I guess it scours and scrapes sites like Stack Overflow, or I guess, whatever sites that you guys use, or to go to to get code or whatever. But that's where it gets its information.
And another rumor theory that I've heard is that if you have a lot of content on your website, then there it's possible that ChatGPT can recommend you personally as an expert in your field. And I think there's a little bit of truth to that. If anyone is a follower or a member in a membership with Jon Loomer, he's like the Facebook guru guy, he was saying that he got at least one member from them signing up for his membership by putting in who is the expert in Facebook ads and Facebook marketing. And I guess ChatGPT said Jon Loomer. So that person went right over and signed up for his membership. So he's got I mean, he goes back for years. He's got probably 10 years worth of blog posts and content about Facebook. So depending on your website, and if you blog, or if you have information or if you've been around a while or whatever, you could potentially come up in a ChatGPT result. So that's kind of cool.
I'm gonna try that out. I think you know, if you've been to my website I'm terrible about it. I'm terrible. I have one podcast episode on there. And that was like episode 10. And now I'm up to episode 48. So, and there's not even one through nine on there, I just put 10 I guess I was testing it, but my website tends to be like a testing field. And it shouldn't be like that, because I do have a lot of good information that I think other people would benefit from. So anyway, not to toot my own horn, right, um, but it is what it is.
Okay, so moving on, there is a valid and great use for ChatGPT. And I'm excited about checking out Bard to see how that works as well. But the real reason and the main reason for this podcast is to go over what Google has released. And they did it on February 8 2023. So that was like nine days after I had my initial podcast. So if I had only waited, I could have given you guys like more information, better information, but you're getting to now. So they released it. It's called Google Searches Guidance about AI Generated Content. And I can link to it in the show notes if you guys want to read it verbatim. But basically, what it says it's like, you know, the guidance if you're going to use any kind of AI generated content for your website, and SEO. So it gives its little disclaimer, and reasoning about how it goes about ranking and things like that. And it says Google's ranking systems aim to reward original, high quality content that demonstrates the qualities of what we call E A T. So now they've added an extra E at the beginning of the E A T, which is expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Okay. So that's what they're still looking for. And it says “our focus on the quality of content, rather than how content is produced is a useful guide that has helped us deliver reliable, high quality results to users for years”. All right. So it says how automation can create helpful content. “When it comes to automatically generated content, our guidance has been consistent for years using automation, including AI to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policy”. All right, so let's say that, again, using AI, or any automation to generate content with a primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of spam policy. So I hope that kind of clears that up. If you're sitting there going, I'm just gonna crank out all this content and put it on my website, and it's gonna rank me for this because I'm getting this out quickly, they're gonna know and you're gonna be violating their spam policies. Alright? It says “Google has many years of experience dealing with automation being used in an attempt to gain search results, our spam fighting efforts, including our spam brain system will continue how ever spam is produced”.
Alright, so then it says it goes on to say that this “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, AI has the ability to power new levels of expression and creativity, and to serve as a critical tool to help people create great content for the web”. Alright, so if you're using it for something that is giving helpful information to someone, again, like it says sports scores or forecasts, or you know, transcription of any type of audio, video or anything like that. If you're using the AI for that, then that's a good thing. So then it has a little section called Our Advice for Creators Considering AI Generation. And it says, “as explained, however, content is produced those seeking success and Google Search should be looking to produce original high quality people first con content demonstrating the qualities of E A T”, which if you remember just a few seconds ago, expertise experience authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Okay. creators can learn more about this concept and it gives a little link and it says “In addition, we've updated that page with some guidance about thinking in terms of who, how and why in relation to how content is produced. So evaluating your content, by Google standards, whether you're using AI generated content or not, will help you stay on course, with what our system seeks to reward.” Okay, so I'm not going to give the form away with all this, you can read it yourself, you don't need to have me read it for you, I was just hitting the high points on this. But again, it's all about the useful, helpful, original, and satisfies aspects of E A T, is what content will rank highly on search. And if it's AI content that includes all of that, it's going to rank highly on search. So that kind of does explain things, but it doesn't explain things. So, again, I think it kind of goes back to what I was saying in my first podcast about this is if you just you know, verbatim, copy and paste, something that it generated for you into a blog post, I think that's going to violate policies. Because, again, original is a key, huge key word there, pun intended, and useful, helpful and satisfies all the aspects of E A T. So what could you use AI for?
And again, I think it goes back to what I was saying, like to give you a jumping off point, or maybe you can get a list of bullet points that you want to put your spin on that's original and useful and helpful for people to consider. So the other thing is, is it says, “Should I add author byline to all my content?” and the answer to that question is “you should consider having accurate author byline when readers would reasonably expect it, such as to any content where someone might think who wrote this” - okay. But they also have guidelines for publishers on their Google News Policies Page, so and someone else also asked, “Should I add AI or automation disclosures in my content?” Um, it says, “AI or automation disclosures are useful for content where someone might think how was this created, consider adding these when it would be reasonably expected”. So again, it's kind of muddy, murky. And it also says “giving AI an author byline is probably not the best way to follow our recommendations to make clear to readers when AI is part of the content creation process”. So there's a whole process on there that you guys can read about.
So I hope this kind of clears things up. Because I still see like, I mean, it's like, this thing is like, taking off like wildfire. Like I get emails from, like some of these main gurus, who, you know, do online webinars and things. And they're trying to show you how to create emails through AI, and it's the fastest way to do your email list and to grow your email list and this and that, and the other. And I mean, it might be, and I haven't taken any of their courses, maybe I should but it was $25. And I just don't want to spend that money. But, you know, use common sense. If you're taking shortcuts, then that's probably a sign for you to say, maybe this is not the best way to go about this. If you are using it for research purposes, and you're, you know, giving credit where credit's due not so much to AI, obviously, but to the original person, or if you're the original person, then give credit to yourself, obviously. But um, you know, it's up to you. And again, if Google seems to think that what you're doing is for rankings and not for people - and that's a big thing right there, I'm gonna say it again, if Google thinks you're using the AI content creation for rankings instead of for people, then you're going to be marked as spam. So you've got to make the content created for people and not just get it out there just to get it out there.
Now, there is a link in here that I clicked on this article, and it's in the How Search Works site and it was kind of interesting. They had a little two minute video that I went through and Google actually uses real people to validate the authentication and trustworthiness and information on like specific websites. And these people who have this job title as evaluators, or whatever they're called, they go through this rigorous training, they have to pass a test. But then there's like 10,000 of them, at least over the world. And if Google wants to make sure that their algorithms are working, if they're putting right content, they there are people who review, it's not just the algorithms, there's actual real people reviewing your, your content on your website, which I thought was pretty cool. I didn't realize that until I clicked on that. So I learned something today, too, which I wanted to pass along to y'all. But they evaluate these websites. So they send them websites, and they do a Google search. And they click on everything. And they kind of evaluate which website gave the best information according to what they're searching for. And so Google doesn't make a change, just because one person said, Oh, this one's better than this one. But it's collective. So everyone gives their information and their evaluation of websites. And then collectively, they put all this data together, and then they kind of revamp and replace and move around the sites in ranking order, which I thought that was pretty cool. And maybe how do I get a job like that, you know, maybe I might look into that, because that would be fun to figure that out, and to see. But, um, so it's not only algorithms, it's real people who are doing searches. So that's a lot to consider and to take in. And it's something that I would totally have you consider before you start, you know, grinding out, like 12 blog posts in the next hour, based solely on what your ChatGPT says about something. You know, even if you got information from ChatGPT if you can put your own spin on it, then that's going to be and I'm not, like, just don't get me wrong, don't plagiarize, you know, just use it as ideas, use it as, as an outline, use it as bullet points, use it as talking points. But write your own content, you know, and if you get stuck saying something like, how do I say this in a better way, because I did that, too. I used ChatGPT because on the website that I just launched last week for my client, I was trying to figure out a shorter and nicer and clearer way to say something. So I just said, How do I say this better? And I typed in what I was trying to say, and it came back with some examples. So that's kind of cool. I mean, you can use it, you know, how do you spell this? What's the source? What's another word for this? You know, there's lots of ways to use it. And but yeah, I just thought this is really interesting about what Google says about AI generated content. So you can use it, but don't use it in a way to increase your rankings solely. Alright? Yes, there's a lot of room for translation there. There's, yeah trial and error, y'all again, trial and error, and use the Search Console. Hey, you thought I was gonna get through a whole episode without saying Search Console? Nope, sorry, Search Console, always number one for me. But yeah, just make sure what you're doing is helping other people and shows your expertise based on your experience, you're an authority in this line of work, and that you're trustworthy, that you're not, you know, giving shortcuts and telling people oh, do this or do that or whatever. I mean, you’ve got to think about how much information is actually out there on the web. And, you know, pretty much if you search something, you're gonna get a lot of results to say this, something similar, but then you're gonna find something that's like completely off the wall in the other direction. And if that's what you're looking for, then you're like, Ooh, this is valid because this is what I was thinking. But you know what isn't from someone who is trustworthy, like, you know, and so just be trustworthy. Just be an expert, like talk up your expertise, what you've researched, what you've learned, what you think ,what you know, what you've experienced. Be transparent about it. If you did use ChatGPT, or anything else, Bard, Canva, Tailwind, an email engine, I guess search has something like that, I don't know. I mean, there's, so much out there, I can't even keep up. And I've been trying to keep up for real. But it's just so overwhelming that you just have to take this in little bite sized pieces and kind of get all the information together, and then make your own decision about how to do it and what to do.
But I really thought that this this article from the Google Search blog, the Search Central Blog, about Google's search guidance was very, very interesting. And it says like, this was all posted by Danny Sullivan and Chris Nelson on behalf of the Google Search Quality team. So if you guys follow any of this, or any of these people, you know, Danny Solomon's, like a head guy at Google. And so yeah, I think you should take this information and seriously consider it when you're writing your content.
Alright, so that's all I have for today. I hope everyone has a fabulous day. And if you have any questions, obviously, or comments, you can click the link to leave a voice message for me and I'll answer you or you can contact me through my website, or my FaceBook page or my Instagram page. There's lots of ways to get in touch with me. I want to hear from you for sure. I want to hear what you guys think about all this. And if any of you guys have used AI for content creation, that you just basically cut and paste in your ranking for it. That would be interesting. You know, I have some plans to try some of this stuff out myself. Yay. Finally, I'm going to have a full website. Yay. But um, yeah, so we'll see how it goes and look forward to a podcast about Bard coming up soon since I have no longer been waitlisted. I am now an official user. Woohoo. All right. Well, y'all have a fabulous day. Stay safe, stay healthy. And happy website-ing y'all. Until next time, see you later.