Do search engines penalise websites for using AI content?

Intro

AI is everywhere, from “uncanny valley” images on your social media feed to oddly worded content popping up in marketing. But the question everyone’s asking is – should I use AI on my website?

We get it. AI is incredibly efficient, and let’s face it, there’s not enough time in the day to stay on top of your website content. Whether it’s updating your blog or adding new product descriptions, it can be tempting to farm it out for AI to tackle. But could it be doing more harm than good?

Guidelines

AI and Google’s EEAT guidelines

Let’s start by looking at what the biggest name in search says when it comes to AI. Google is the determining force in all things digital, with marketers around the world trying to appease the algorithms in order to rank well online. In 2022, Google announced that, while AI content won’t be punished, Google will prioritise content that offers EEAT – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

The thing is, AI can’t really tick these boxes. AI tools like ChatGPT can generate content quickly, but it doesn’t have any personal thoughts or unique expertise to add to the conversation.

So, while AI content may not be penalised, it certainly won’t be favoured either. Google wants to encourage genuine content, written by real people who are experts in their field. Not even the most advanced AI can replicate that level of value. But don’t just take my word for it.

Neil Patel

Choosing your brand aesthetic

Neil Patel, one of the world’s most respected leaders in Search Engine Optimisation, recently renounced the use of AI-generated. In his article, You Are Wasting Your Time Using AI to Create Content, he explains that while AI can help you create content faster, it generally underperforms compared to human content. Using his own AI and human-written articles as research, he found that human-generated content consistently drove more traffic over time. Neil suggests using AI for tasks like research or keyword integration (which I’ll cover in more detail shortly) but emphasises that AI-generated content needs heavy modifying before it’s of a high standard.

From my own research, I’m in full agreement. AI is great for assisting with certain tasks, but it falls short when it comes to building trust and authority – key factors that help your content rank well in search results and connect with your audience. Later in this article, I’ll share insights I’ve gained from my own research, but first, let’s look at the worst-case scenario…

Concerns

The dangers of using AI on your website

It might look good to you, but savvy readers can spot AI from a mile away. It’s not just the obvious things, like American spelling. It’s also sentence structure and words that AI seems to love – like “deep dive”, “in today’s world”, and my personal favourite “tapestry”. These repetitive phrases stand out for all the wrong reasons and make anything you publish seem generic.

Reliance on AI can also make your brand appear lazy, because you’re cutting corners instead of investing in authentic communication. You risk your audience walking away from their interaction feeling that their time wasn’t valued.

After all, if you can’t be bothered to write it, why should your customers be bothered to read it?

Needless to say, if readers suspect you’re using AI, it can majorly discredit your brand. The moment they cotton on, they’ll bounce off your site in search of “real” advice or information, and Google takes note. Eventually, like our mate Neil found out, you’ll get less traffic, fewer leads, and have to pedal hard to get yourself back where you started.

Approach

Doing AI well: how to prompt AI

AI is only as good as the instructions you give it. If you want it to produce decent content, you need to provide detailed prompts. Remember, AI is just a word generation tool, stringing chains of words together based on what it finds online. Without context about what you want to produce or who the content will be read by, it will churn out bland, generic results that don’t reflect your brand or connect with your audience.

Good prompts include details like:

• Audience: Who is this content for?
• Tone: Is it formal, casual, or somewhere in between?
• Purpose: Are you trying to inform, engage, or sell?

I recommend providing this kind of information for even the simplest of tasks. Whether you’re using AI to create a snappy headline for an article or you’re using it to create ideas for future marketing efforts, you’ll get the best results by priming it with information about your audience, business and goals. Let’s play around with a few examples.

Prompt A: “Write a paragraph about the risks of using AI for your digital content.”
Output: “Using AI for digital content creation poses several risks, including the potential for misinformation and lack of originality. While AI can generate text and visuals quickly, it may inadvertently produce inaccurate or misleading information, as it relies on existing data and patterns. Additionally, over-reliance on AI can lead to a homogenisation of content, where unique voices and perspectives are drowned out by algorithmically favoured styles. There’s also the concern of intellectual property violations, as AI-generated content may unintentionally mimic existing works. Lastly, the use of AI raises ethical questions about accountability and transparency, especially if users are unaware that the content they engage with was generated by an algorithm.”

Prompt B: “Write a short paragraph about the risks of using AI for your digital content. It should be specific to business owners and decision-makers in the UK, as this is our targeted reader.”
Output: “For UK business owners, relying on AI for digital content can bring unexpected risks. AI tools often lack the local market understanding and cultural nuance that resonate with British audiences, resulting in content that feels impersonal or even out of touch. AI-generated content also risks failing to meet Google’s standards for Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trust (EEAT), which could affect your site’s visibility in UK search results. While AI can help with tasks like quick drafts, over-relying on it might cost you the brand voice and authenticity that customers connect with.”

Prompt C: “We’re a digital marketing agency that wants to inform UK-based business owners about the risks of using AI for their digital content. We speak to our readers using a conversational and approachable tone, simplifying complex concepts to make them understandable to people from all walks of life. Write a short paragraph about the risks of using AI for your digital content.”
Output: “Using AI for digital content can seem tempting—it’s quick, efficient, and easily accessible. But for UK business owners, it comes with some pitfalls worth noting. AI-generated content often lacks the local insight and personal touch that British audiences expect, making it feel generic or even off-key. Plus, search engines like Google prioritise content that shows real expertise and trustworthiness (known as EEAT), which AI can’t fully achieve. While AI is a great tool for brainstorming or getting started, over-relying on it risks losing the unique voice and credibility that make your brand memorable to customers.”

As you can see, the more you finetune your prompt, the closer the output will be to what you’re looking for. However, it’s still a far cry from anything I’d be willing to publish on my own website – let alone a client’s.

Application

How AI can support your website content

In my experience, AI can’t offer high-quality brand representation in the way that an experienced copywriter can. But that’s not to say it doesn’t have a place in your toolkit. My team regularly uses ChatGPT in place of an “office junior”, tackling the tasks they don’t have time for, or simplifying the complex stuff down into manageable chunks. Here are just a few of the ways that we integrate AI into our marketing:

List potential content ideas

Why strain yourself looking for inspiration while staring at a blank page when you can get AI to do the heavy lifting? Providing it understands your business, target market, USPs, products etc, tools like ChatGPT can spit out a list of 30 blog topics for you to attack with a red pen. Keep the ideas that have merit, bin the rest, and then bring in your personal expertise to decide what the best version of those initial ideas might look like.

Outlining content

Again, AI can be great for turning a blank page into a very rough draft within a few minutes. With enough information, it can give you a blog outline that ensures you’ve covered your key points, with a few bullet points of things you might want to discuss.

Research assistance

Let me start by saying that you need to be careful using AI for research, as that’s not what it was designed for. However, if you’re coming from a place of zero knowledge, it can help you hit the ground running. While I certainly wouldn’t recommend using AI to research any high-stakes content, for basic queries, it can be a great help.

Summarising info

If you’re staring down the barrel of a 30-page document and need to turn it into a snappy LinkedIn post, AI is a godsend. You can’t beat a computer when it comes to speed, and utilising it to pull out the salient points of a large quantity of data is a great efficiency.

Chatbots

I’ve supported many clients in adding a ChatBot to their website, offering a 24/7 point of contact for general enquiries or contact form gathering. In terms of visible AI on your website, this is the only one that gets my approval – everything else should be kept firmly offline, used only to streamline your processes.

Copywriters

Why human writers still matter

Now that we’ve covered the do’s and don’ts of AI, I’d like to share why I use human copywriters on Edge Studio projects. While tech can weave a decent sentence together, they’re simply not capable of bringing emotional intelligence to the table. Humans understand humans, and it’s this understanding that allows content to be laced with nuance and subtlety.

Yes, EEAT is a factor, but ultimately it’s not Google that I use a copywriter for, it’s the readers. People are social beings who rely on communication for connectivity. And, if you’re creating a website or marketing your services, the importance of this communication piece can’t be overstated.

From personal anecdotes and fresh insights to quirky turns of phrase, AI can’t replicate human communication. So why flog a dead horse? Instead, I turn to creatives who write for a living, and can find the words to best represent a business to the world. It’s an investment I feel is well worth making.