Google struck a major blow by releasing its Core Update 2024, the stated objective of which is to better identify non-original or low-quality content. The search engine has also announced, via a press release, that it wants to reduce this type of content polluting the web by 40%.
It must be said that since the democratization of AI – ChatGPT in the lead – in the daily life of organizations trying to develop their presence on search engines, the production of web content has continued to grow. According to the Influencer Marketing Hub, 44% of businesses have adopted AI for content production for marketing purposes.
Content being one of the foundations of natural referencing (SEO), some websites have quickly relied on its massive generation via AI. A risky strategy, easily identifiable by Google when this content is not relevant, useful and original.
Par Mathieu Barascou, CEO & Founder de l'agence SEO hyffen
Google does not want to promote low quality content
For brands who still have doubts about the sanctions applied by Google against poor content, very concrete examples exist.
This is the case of a website that allows you to generate summaries of Youtube videos using AI.
The publication of millions of pages in record time attracted the attention of Google robots, who judged the content to be insufficiently qualitative to deserve their place on the results pages. Result ? The site’s audience has fallen precipitously.
The Core Update 2024 is a continuation of Google’s mission, to always better promote quality content and therefore, the results offered to its Internet users.
Also, to design an effective natural referencing strategy, it is more than necessary to offer Internet users relevant and useful content.
The good news is that AI remains a crutch to get there.
Putting artificial intelligence at the service of content
Contrary to popular belief and as SearchEngineLand points out, the use of AI to generate content is not, in itself, penalized by Google.
Besides, how could the search engine sanction a technology that it also deploys? : the Gemini AI.
Artificial intelligence can therefore be seen as a tool available to marketing and SEO professionals to optimize the content generation process. On condition that the latter truly helps Internet users in their navigation and in their reading journey.
AI is an effective device for delving deeper into a theme, cross-referencing data, synthesizing texts, etc. It is also a fantastic way to check that content evokes all facets of the theme addressed.
But to help Google better promote content, it must be provided with the assurance of underlying human expertise.
A need for expertise and people to promote content
This can involve highlighting the authors, who must be specialists in the subject covered.
Likewise, the power of the expert author would improve what Google calls EEAT., (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
Although this list of criteria does not directly influence the SEO performance of web pages, it allows Google to ensure that the content is people-first, content valued in search results.
The promotion of content by Google could also be achieved through other levers.
Like the intervention of an expert in the articles written, in the form of a quote or a testimony. A very powerful lever for Your Money Your Life (YMYL) articles, which discuss all the subjects that impact the daily lives of Internet users, such as finance or health. Content for which Google needs to validate that the information provided is not misleading.
In short, brands wishing to maintain their online visibility in 2024 have every interest in taking ever greater care of their SEO strategy in order to produce useful and relevant content for Internet users, at the risk of seeing their web pages lose positions on Google. To do this, they can count on the support of AI, provided they rely on underlying human expertise.
