Does AI Generated Content Rank In Google & Is It Good For SEO?

Quick Answer: Yes, AI content ranks in Google. However, your ranks aren’t dependent on how your content is generated. They’re dependent on how valuable the content is to the readers. In this blog post, we’ll explain when you should use AI content for SEO (& when you shouldn’t).

AI-generated content. It’s the talk of the town at the moment. Well, in SEO-town it certainly is, anyway.

And why shouldn’t it be? The reality is AI creates some pretty freaking impressive pieces of content.

In fact, we’ve even got our own AI-powered Instant Article Writer here inside of Commission Academy.

But the question is, does AI-generated content actually rank?

And is AI-generated content good for SEO?

Or will creating content with AI ultimately see you getting penalised by Google & banned from the SERPs?

If those are some of the things you’ve been wondering, you’ve landed in the right place.

Here at Commission Academy, we’ve been heavily testing AI-generated content & carrying out lots of research over the past few months to determine how best to proceed.

And in this blog post, we’ll uncover everything you need to know, starting with the #1 question:

Does AI-Generated Content Rank In Google?

Yes, there’s no doubt about it. AI-generated content ranks in Google. That is, providing, of course, that it’s high-quality & satisfies the search-intent.

And why shouldn’t it rank?

The reality is, Google doesn’t care how your content is generated, providing the end result is a high quality page that fulfils the needs of the searcher.

You see, think of it this way. AI is a tool, and if that tool can help you to create quality content more easily then ultimately, it would be silly not to use it.

Google saying “AI shouldn’t be used to create content” would be like going all the way back to when the wheel was invented & telling people they should stick with square wheels.

Frankly, it would be silly… And Google understands that.

However, if you’re using AI to simply mass generate content & pump it out without any real review or care of quality, then that’s a different story.

But what you have to remember here is that Google doesn’t only take the content into account when determining whether or not to rank a page.

Instead, it uses many other signals, as part of their EEAT algorithm:

• E: Experience
• E: Expertise
• A: Authoritativeness
• T: Trustworthiness

So if your website meets that criteria, then yes, your content will rank, regardless of how it is generated.

That’s because, essentially, Google has said “I trust this website & the content it creates”. But what you must remember, is that if you abuse this trust, it can quite easily be taken away.

This means that even though the AI content you publish may rank, it does not mean you can just go gung-ho & start firing out AI content.

You should, instead, still focus on sharing your experience, including your expertise, building your authoritiveness & gaining trust.

And that’s something AI can’t do on its own, which we’ll discuss in the next section.

Is AI Content Good For SEO?

Yes, AI content is fantastic for SEO. It helps you to avoid writers block, it helps you to produce content more efficiently & it helps you cover topics that you may not previously have considered.

So, does that mean you can simply generate, publish & repeat?

Absolutely not!

You see, AI content is a fantastic aid for SEO, but that’s all. It can help you to generate more content & it can help you to generate better content…

But it should never be used as a way to simply manipulate rankings, by mass producing pieces.

Your focus, however you generate your content, should always be on providing the most value to your readers. The moment you start creating for search engines is the most you’ll start to find yourself in bother.

So don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can just “generate & publish” with AI.

But if you use AI content correctly by giving it the proper prompts & spend time editing, adding & improving, it can certainly help you to become a much more efficient SEO.

However, as we touched on in the last section, there are a few things AI content can’t do.

For example, AI cannot share its experiences.

This means that for content such as product reviews, AI content would be useless. After all, people searching for product reviews are looking for opinions from people who’ve actually used the products.

And AI, by itself, cannot showcase expertise, because it’s technically only basing its information off of hearsay. It’s never tried or tested the information it shares.

So whilst AI content can be fantastic, the content alone won’t see you becoming a SEO-superstar. You also need to work on demonstrating your EEAT (experience, expertise, authoritiveness, trustworthiness).

Can AI Content Be Detected?

Yes, at the time of writing AI content can be detected. However, if you are asking yourself this question, then there is a bigger problem at hand.

You shouldn’t be concerning yourself over whether or not your content can be detected as AI. Instead, you should be asking “is this content truly the best it can be?”.

If the content is high-quality, accurate & reads well, who cares how it is created?

It only becomes an issue if the content contains misinformation, reads badly or doesn’t properly cover the topic that it’s discussing in detail.

And whilst AI content can be detected now, the accuracy of detection is getting poorer & poorer by the day as more models are made accessible.

You see, the tools that detect AI don’t detect “artificial intelligence”, they detect specific models.

This means that a tool that detects content produced by the GPT3 model wouldn’t be able to detect content produced by the GPT4 model.

So, in reality, AI detection shouldn’t be a concern… And if this is your concern then you should really be questioning your approach to it.

How Can You Make AI Content Undetectable?

There are many ways to make AI content undetectable. Some people use paraphrasing tools & some people manually edit chunks of text.

But why would you want to make it undetectable?

I know I’ve mentioned this a few times already throughout this page but I really want to drill this point home. If you’re trying to make AI content undetectable, the fact it’s AI content is not your issue.

It’s what you’re trying to do with it that’s your issue.

I say this because the only people who are truly interested in making AI content undetectable are those who are trying to “cheat” their search rankings.

And that’s just a sure-fire way to performing badly in search.

So forget about trying to make your content undetectable. Instead, focus on making it as valuable as it possibly can be.

If you do that, you’ll naturally find that as you make the edits & improvements, it naturally becomes “undetectable” anyway…

And given that it’s then ultimately better quality as well, it’ll rank higher for longer & generate more traffic overall, making it a very worthwhile effort.

How Does Google Deal With AI Content?

Although AI has recently gained a lot of attention in the media, it’s actually nothing new. AI has been around for a pretty long time.

This means that Google has been dealing with AI content fora very long time too.

So, how does Google deal with it?

Well, they have algorithms, like the one mentioned earlier that takes into account the experience, expertise, authoritativeness & trustworthiness of creators.

How do they do this? Well, they use literally thousands of signals to determine those factors, but some of the main ones include things like:

• How long has the creator been publishing?
• Has the content been linked to or cited by anybody else?
• What are people saying about the content on social media?

And how Google deals with your content (whether it be AI or not), depends on those signals.

If Google doesn’t deem your site to be important, it’ll simply just ignore your content. It may index it, but it wont rank it high enough for anyone to see it.

If, however, Google believes your site to be important, your content will get ranked & how high it gets ranked will then depend on its quality & the interactions that it gets from users.

So, in short, Google doesn’t just say “nope, that’s AI content, don’t rank it”. It looks at a plethora of other factors to determine what to do.

Will You Get Penalized For AI Content?

This depends on what you’re trying to do with the AI content. If you’re trying to use it as a “lazy” way to gain search traffic & manipulate rankings then yup, you’ll get penalized.

However, if you’re using it simply as a tool to generate high-quality content more efficiently & you’re editing the pieces that you create, you’ll be safe from penilization.

The reality here is that Google wants more content & therefore it genuinely wants creators to be able to create content more efficiently.

That’s because over 15% of queries that Google receives have never even been searched before.

So Google is not going to be specifically against AI content, especially not since they have their own AI content creation product.

They are only going to be against misuse of AI content creation, which is the important key point.

The Cons of AI-Generated Content

AI-generated content is fantastic, most of the time, but it does not come without cons. We’ll explore some of the biggest cons we’ve seen with it below.

AI Content Can Be Confidently Wrong

One of the biggest issues we’ve seen whilst experimenting with AI content is that it can often be confidently wrong, making it hard to spot mistakes.

You see, for some reason, instead of simply saying “I’m unsure about X”, AI likes to try & be correct all of the time & just says everything with pure confidence, even if it really doesn’t know.

Obviously, this is a big issue, especially when it comes to the EEAT algorithms. If you’re providing wrong information or worse, misinformation, you’re going to lose rankings fast.

AI Content Can Be Repetitive

Sometimes, it seems AI likes to repeat itself… A lot. We’ve generated content using AI where it would repeat the same points over & over again.

Obviously, as a reader, this gets pretty darn annoying pretty quickly.

And if you’re in a YMYL niche, AI likes to add a lot of disclaimers to its content to cover its back which can also be a bit of an issue as well.

AI Content Can Be Random

Sometimes, it seems that the AI just has a mind of its own. You may get 10 fantastic pieces of content generated from the AI, then on your 11th, just when you think you can trust it, it may go off on a completely whacky tangent.

Experts call this phenomenon “hallucinations” & they’re not really sure what causes it.

AI Content Can Be A Chore To Read

The better you get with your prompts, the better quality content you can generate with AI but even still, its readability can’t be guaranteed.

Again, back to the previous point about “hallucinations”, sometimes the content the AI provides you with can just be pure crap, even if you think you’ve mastered the perfect prompt.

Is SEO Becoming Obsolete?

Absolutely not. I mean, I resonate with everybody who is concerned about this but the reality is SEO certainly isn’t becoming obsolete.

Is it changing? Yes, definitely… But that’s nothing new.

Search has already evolved dramatically over the years & this is just going to be another evolvement that SEOs are going to have to adapt to.

How exactly will it change?

Well, it’s hard to tell but I imagine there will be much more emphasis put on the EEAT algorithm. This means more display of experience & trust, along with more weight put on backlinks to content.

But to say for sure… You’d need a crystal ball.

Bottom Line: Should You Use AI To Create Content?

Yes, you should be using AI to help create your content. If you aren’t, you’re going to be getting left behind – there’s no doubt about it.

But understand that I am not saying you should simply rush to an AI tool & begin mass pumping out content because that’s far from what I mean.

You should simply be using AI as a tool to help you create high-quality more efficiently.

Leverage it for research, structures, ideas, etc.

And if you’d like to get access to some of the best AI tools designed for SEO, be sure to check out the free tools that we’ve made available inside of our free affiliate marketing course.

We’ve got AI-powered niche finder tools, keyword discovery tools, article writers & more.

So if you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign up for our free course before you leave.

But overall, I hope that you enjoyed this article & most importantly, I hope that it gave you some good insight into using AI content for SEO.

Feel free to share any comments or questions below.