DIGITAL MARKETING INSIDER SECRETS | IS AI DESTROYING THE VERY BUSINESS YOU ARE USING IT FOR?
You might be wondering how this is possible. You are doing just fine with AI tools and even progressing in your business. They write for you, act as your virtual assistant, and pretty much help you with everything. But there’s also a shadier side to it. Last month, Google rolled out a spam update in which it targeted websites that have content generated by AI. It affected AI pages that were poorly done and their rankings on search results, leaving an overall negative impact on businesses online.
The following are the global categories that have suffered the most damage:
(Source: NeilPatel.com)
As you can see from the chart, news and sports sites were hit the hardest. Arts and entertainment were close behind, and communities also made the top five.
Most of these sites were content-based rather than product-based.
Google’s spam update was based on mainly 3 elements:
Content
To get more search links and traffic, sites have content on their pages that provide little or no valuable information to users. These are thin-content scraper sites created by AI.
Meta tags and descriptions
Every business wants to appear on the first page of search engine results. And to do so, they allow their meta tags to be repetitive and poorly written, targeting them only for search engines. They forget that they are operating for humans and not search engines.
Keywords
The best way to turn a user into a customer is by providing him with the precise and valuable information he is searching for. But it doesn’t mean that you ruin his reading experience by stuffing your content with keywords to make it more relevant. It will shoo him away.
Google had kept all of this in mind and targeted such websites that were heavily dependent on AI for their content.
However, you must know that not all AI pages were affected. AI content that was modified by humans fared way better.
To give you a summary, here’s a chart for you:
(Source: NeilPatel.com)
This means the more “human-generated” content you have, the better your business will do.
So what do you do now? How do you check if your content is authentic and valuable to your potential customers? How do you still use AI tools for content without causing damage to your website’s search rank and traffic?
Google has provided some actionable advice to prevent such damage.
Take the front seat in a content generation:
If you’re using AI to generate content, don’t rely on it completely! Instead, modify your content. Your brand has its own voice; adjust the tone to match it. Don’t run after keywords; provide value in your information.
Get help from Google:
Google has invited users to learn more about its AI-based spam prevention system, SpamBrain. If your site’s rankings drop, review Google’s spam policies and ensure your web pages are compliant.
Final takeaway
While it is established that AI is beneficial to your business, relying completely on it is not. Let it help you, but have your own control. Consult with digital marketing firms to build your online presence in a reliable way. And most importantly, stay updated in this ever-changing environment!
With the increasing popularity of mobile searches, Google has announced a new update. Google recently announced that it will be introducing site names on mobile searches. It says that site names are currently available for mobile Google Search results in English, French, Japanese, and German. Over the next few months, they will be rolling out additional languages.
New Site Name Structured Data Documentation
Google has several sources to identify the site name for a search result; you can use structured data on your homepage to indicate your preferred site name and let Google know what the site name should be.
According to Google,
When Google lists a page in search results, it shows the name of the site the page comes from. It is called the site name. Google uses several different sources to determine the site name, and you can indicate your preference by adding WebSite structured data. Note that the site name is different from the per-page title links (title links are specific to each web page, whereas the site name is for the entire site).
Site names can appear in English, French, Japanese, and German for mobile Google Search results. You can learn everything you need to know by studying Google’s developer doc, which provides details on each of the following topics.
- How site names in Google Search are created
- How to add structured data
- Guidelines
- Structured data type definitions
- Troubleshooting common issues
- Troubleshooting structured data issues
Also — Google recommends revisiting the documentation for favicons. Since they intend to continue showing favicons on Search, they also recommend providing an icon that’s at least 48px and following the existing favicon guidelines.
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In order to combat review manipulation on Google Maps, two new restrictions have been put in place. These should help to create a more level playing field for businesses and give users a better idea of what to expect when they visit a place.
In Google’s Prohibited and restricted content support document, you’ll find a Deceptive Content section that talks about Fake Engagement, Impersonation, Misinformation, and Misrepresentation. The new restrictions are included under the Fake Engagement point. Here’s a screenshot of the same below.
So we can conclude that only genuine reviews are encouraged, and if anyone tries to violate these restrictions, they can be penalized.
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