With AI technology now integrated into nearly every aspect of digital marketing, traditional SEO strategies are evolving rapidly. There is now a wide range of tools and solutions designed specifically to help businesses create SEO-ready content, while also automating many of the processes associated with ranking site pages higher in search engines.
However, this raises a key question: Can AI-generated content effectively support SEO and help your site rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs)?
The truth is, this really isn’t a simple “yes” or “no” question. The effectiveness of AI in supporting your SEO efforts largely depends on the extent and manner of its use.
What Is AI-Generated Content?
AI-generated content is any text, imagery, or other forms of media that is automatically generated using descriptive commands using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Jasper, or Claude.
Generative AI tools leverage AI training models that help them to process and learn from large amounts of information, which can then be used to provide users with specific results based on their unique requests. These tools can then provide long-form text on a wide range of topics, create step-by-step guides, or even generate custom images.
Is AI-Generated Content Bad for SEO?
Ever since AI tools have become widely used in business settings, there has been a lot of discussion on whether or not AI-generated content is harmful to other SEO efforts.
Unfortunately, many people have painted all AI-generated content as a shortcut that only brings sites negative results and will result in ranking drops.
However, the truth is that not all AI-generated content is considered negatively impactful to modern SEO strategies. That being said, there is a right and wrong way to use content generated by AI tools and solutions.
When AI Content Hurts SEO
Even though AI content on its own isn’t inherently bad for SEO, if it’s abused, it can quickly begin to derail a site’s ranking performance.
The biggest challenge with AI-generated content is that it isn’t always accurate. If AI tools being used aren’t trained on higher-quality AI models, they can often lead to inaccurate results or hallucinated facts that may be significantly flawed.
Publishing AI-generated content without thoroughly vetting its credibility can mean you end up publishing irrelevant or even harmful information for users. Another challenge with many AI tools is that they simply try to replicate the content they locate when creating an “original” response to users. This often leads to plagiarism and duplicate content, which can significantly impact rankings on SERPs.
AI-generated content also tends to be very stale and lacking real personality or authoritative writing. It tends to fall short when meeting Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), which means the content is less likely to send the right signals to Google’s crawlers when looking for higher quality information worth indexing, ranking higher in SERPS, and referencing on AI Overviews.
Google’s Official Stance on AI-Generated Content
Google has made it clear that they don’t have any issues with site developers using AI tools to generate or improve content on their site. However, they have made it clear that the quality and accuracy of the content are the most important thing to get right.
Google maintains a “quality” and “people-first” approach to content development. This means that while AI-generated content in itself won’t penalize your site when trying to rank various pages of content in SERPs, lower-quality or spammy content explicitly used to manipulate search rankings will result in rankings starting to dip.
When AI Content Helps SEO
If used strategically, AI tools can help with a wide range of SEO-related tasks. Since AI-powered solutions are much faster and efficient than many manual processes, this technology is perfectly suited for tackling workflows such as keyword research, competitive analysis, content development, editing, and keyword optimization.
Typically, AI-generated content is best reserved for factual-based information that doesn’t require added opinions or experiential focus. In most cases, combining portions of AI-generated content can be a great way to streamline tasks while still allowing site owners to inject their own personality into blogs and articles.
Use Cases Where AI Excels
- Meta Descriptions - Generative AI tools are the perfect solution for summarizing your content and creating keyword-optimized meta descriptions that can be used for each of your site pages. They can easily apply SEO best practices that limit character length while still having compelling copy to entice individuals to click on links.
- Headline Suggestions - When trying to brainstorm article or blog title ideas, AI tools can help to generate a wide range of options based on your specific marketing goals. They’ll also ensure each headline suggestion is SEO-friendly and designed to maximize keyword utilization.
- FAQ Generation - Creating an FAQ section for your site can help you to summarize key ideas in each of your blogs while providing an easy location for readers visiting your site to answer important questions. AI tools can help you create common FAQs that are optimized to capitalize on higher volume search terms and phrases.
- SEO Copy Drafts and Rewriting - Generative AI solutions help content developers brainstorm different topic ideas and provide SEO copy drafts that can be used to kickstart the creative process. They can also be used to help refine any existing content so it’s ready for public publication on websites.
How to Use AI for SEO Without Getting Penalized
There are plenty of ways you can use AI-generated content responsibly without negatively impacting your SEO efforts. Below are some basic steps you can take to minimize the chances of receiving any SEO penalties:
- Treat AI as Your Assistant, Not Your Replacement - Always make sure you or one of your employees is in full control over the content that gets published. AI can be great for creating content drafts, but it is essential that a person reviews, edits, and refines the final output. This is the only way to guarantee the content is accurate and meets your quality standards.
- Fact-Check Everything and Add Your Own Insights - Never take what an AI generates at face value, especially on more complex topics. You should supplement AI-generated content with your own independent research and verify any stats or facts it provides.
- Inject Your Brand’s Voice and Personality - An AI tool doesn’t understand your brand or your audience the way you do. Use the AI-generated text as a starting point, but it's up to you to update the content with your distinct brand voice and personality.
- Focus on Quality, Not Just Quantity - The quickest way to get penalized on Google is by using AI to churn out hundreds of generic, unhelpful articles. Instead of focusing on how much content you can create, use AI to help you create more insightful content. Your primary goal should always be to produce something that’s genuinely valuable for your audience.
In Summary
When used the right way, AI content can be a helpful tool for automating SEO initiatives and supporting your overall digital marketing strategy. However, while it offers amazing efficiency for many different tasks, the need for it still requires human oversight to ensure the content you’re putting out is accurate and reliable.
By combining the speed and effectiveness of AI tools with your own unique insight, you can improve your SEO performance while creating high-quality content that ranks higher on SERPs.