Is using an AI writer like chatGPT recommended from an SEO point of view? Nat Miletic joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share his outlook on SEO and AI writers:
The dangers chatGPT and AI writers present to the web
When is it OK to use an AI writer?
How Google might respond to a world filled with AI-written content?
The Limits and Strengths of AI Writers for SEO
AI writers, like chatGPT present a challenge to SEOs and to the web overall. Creating content is not easy. It takes time and expertise. Creating good content is a lot harder than it looks. Which is why an AI writer is so tempting to so many. However, like anything else - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Flooding the web with AI-written content is a tremendous danger to the health of the web going forward.
This is not to say that there isn't space for an AI writer as part of your SEO or content strategy. As Nat puts it, he is "cautiously optimistic" about AI writers and the future of the web and SEO. For things like writing a header or rephrasing a short paragraph or writing a short description and so forth, an AI writer could be very effective (as long as there is human supervision).
The real problem is in people using an AI writer carte blanche. The quality of content on the web is already not great and people going wild with an AI writer is going to exponentially dilute the quality of content across the entire web. Which is why Google is going to have to figure this out. It's going to have to figure out how to handle detecting and then ranking AI-written content or risk its results going down in quality in commensurate with the level of content quality on the web.
How Will Google Respond to chatGPT & Other AI Written Content?
The web is inevitably going to be filled with content spun up by an AI writer and the search engines, most prominently Google, will have to respond as I already mentioned. This response, in all likelihood, will be by doubling down on domain-level quality metrics.
At this stage of the web's evolution, there is a lot of snippet content that's already been done a million times over. For this content, it's entirely plausible to have an AI writer scrape the web and regurgitate what's already been done as in this case even a human writer would not have much to add to the conversation. (I have to emphasize that in this case human review is needed to prevent inaccuracy and potential plagiarism).
How would Google go about ranking content that is entirely similar? It would have to look at the strength of the site around that topic. This is why algorithms like the Helpful Content system look at the overall quality of the domain. In such a scenario, should all of the content around a very top-level and highly "snippetable" query be "equal" Google would be best served by looking at the domain overall as it pertains to that topic and to site quality.
Who will win the ranking battle? Not those who use AI writers per se, but who use AI writers in the right use cases and build context via the strength of the content on the site in aggregate.
For more of the SEO Rant Podcast check out our previous episode on: Is TikTok A Search Engine & Will It Replace Google?