Google Objects to GBT-3 AI Writing Tools

Your objective is to have your company appear on Page One of Google searches. That means enlisting professional SEO help to avoid content that Google will deem “spam” and drive your rankings down.

Frame-of-Reference for Your Website Content Provider Conversation

Promise not to lead you into the weeds … just a brief perspective on the potentially negative effect of the GBT-3 artificial intelligence (AI) writing tool on your Google rankings.

The Good News: GBT-3 is an AI writing tool built by an artificial intelligence program that automatically generates text that is indistinguishable from that generated by a human author. The good news for general-purpose content applications … it is able to create articles and even books in hours based on a small amount of text input for a particular topic.

GBT-3 learns how to write by reading millions of articles and books from Google Books and other websites. The finished product is written with perfect grammar, correct punctuation, and no spelling mistakes. Notably, the quality of the text generated by GPT-3 is so high that it can be difficult to determine whether or not it was written by a human … which, as we’ll see, has both benefits and risks for digital marketers.

Initial reactions to the introduction of GBT-3 in mid-2020 was distinctly positive. Since content plays a crucial role in SEO, a number of tech-savvy marketing pros welcomed it as a valuable tool to create and leverage original content for website articles, blog posts and advertising. Since GPT-3 written copy is just as persuasive as human-written copy, it was touted as the answer to create content that drives higher rankings in Google searches … efficiently and cost effectively.

The Not-So-Good News: In early April this year, Google announced that content generated automatically using AI writing tools violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, classified such content as spam … and if detected by the Google’s webspam team may result in a “manual penalty”.

That means if your website is caught with AI produced content, you may suffer a

sudden drop in your website traffic coupled with a corresponding decline in rankings.

So, what are the odds of GBT-3 generated content being spotted by the webspam team? Apparently, there is no automatic discovery protocol in place at Google. That said, Mueller is specific in stating that “… if we see that something is automatically generated, then the webspam team can definitely take action” … and treat it as spam.

Takeaways

There’s no way to predict when the Google webspam team may scan your website and discover AI generated content. So, “Better to be safe than sorry”, is your safest guiding principle.

Go through a “content audit” with your website content writer(s) … whether internal talent or independent copywriters. Your objective is to determine what, if any, text has been written via AI technology. Then direct your writer resource(s) to immediately replace that content with human-written copy … or just remove it, period.

That’s your best immediate and ongoing defense to avoid Google penalties and undergo the agony of seeing your website traffic plummet, Google rankings tumble and website visitor conversions plunge.

We, at Third Marble, will keep you updated in the event of any changes to Google’s stated position regarding AI created content as this form of text creation becomes more and more prevalent.

A focused, continuing effort to perfect your local SEO is critical.

Now your choices are do-it-yourself or invest in a third-party seasoned service provider for assistance. It is likely that you are already wearing several hats as a business owner and adding yet another marketing analytics responsibility is probably not an attractive option.

By hiring a team of Google experts for your SEO or Google Ads management, you will ensure that your SEO or Google Ads results are always accurate and current with all major Google updates.