Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Friday, February 10th, 2023
Google is updating its Lighthouse 10 tool to remove one of the overall Core Web Vitals metrics, Time To Interactive (TTI).
Google will be assigning the TTI weight to Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which will give CLS a total of 25% of the overall performance score.
TTI is not a Core Web Vitals metric used in Search Console or ranking, but it was used in Lighthouse, Google’s developer tool.
What Google said. Google posted on its Chrome developer blog:
“The venerable Time To Interactive (TTI) metric is being removed in Lighthouse 10, concluding the deprecation process started in Lighthouse 8. TTI’s 10% score weight is shifting to Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which will now account for 25% of the overall performance score.”
– Brendan Kenny, What’s new in Lighthouse 10
Does it matter for ranking? Technically, this might have zero impact on overall rankings in Google Search. Core Web Vitals is a minimal ranking factor in general and the current Core Web Vitals includes largest contentful paint (LCP), first input delay (FID), and cumulative layout shift (CLS). TTI is not included.
John Mueller from Google confirmed this change does not impact rankings, as we originally reported:
CWV are independent of Lighthouse scores (there might be some components that overlap, but the scoring Lighthouse does is separate).
— johnmu is a ranking factor and so are you 
(@JohnMu) February 10, 2023
Lighthouse 10 changing. Just the Lighthouse tool is changing. The scores you see in Google Search Console specifically likely won’t change related to TTI being removed. Now, Lighthouse 10 will assign the weights as follows:
- Total blocking time 30%
- Cumulative layout shift 25%
- Largest contentful paint 25%
- Speed index 10%
- First contentful paint 10%
What are Core Web Vitals? It is a set of metrics Google introduced in 2020. Google defines it as:
“The subset of Web Vitals that apply to all web pages, should be measured by all site owners, and will be surfaced across all Google tools. Each of the Core Web Vitals represents a distinct facet of the user experience, is measurable in the field, and reflects the real-world experience of a critical user-centric outcome.”
The current set of Core Web Vitals focuses on three aspects of the user experience – loading, interactivity, and visual stability – and includes the following metrics (and their respective thresholds):
LCD, FID and CLS. Here are the thresholds for largest contentful paint, first input delay and cumulative layout shift:
- LCP: measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
- FID: measures interactivity. To provide a good user experience, pages should have a FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
- CLS: measures visual stability. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.
More details. Google has a help document for this specific report.
Google said that this report is based on three metrics: LCP, FID, and CLS. If a URL does not have a minimum amount of reporting data for any of these metrics, it is omitted from the report. Once a URL has a threshold amount of data for any metric, the page status is the status of its most poorly performing metric.
Status metrics are evaluated against the following boundaries:
| |
Good |
Need improvement |
Poor |
| LCP |
<=2.5s |
<=4s |
>4s |
| FID |
<=100ms |
<=300ms |
>300ms |
| CLS |
<=0.1 |
<=0.25 |
>0.25 |
Why we care. I asked Google if there will be any changes related to rankings with this change but it seems unlikely. It is worth noting that Google, in general web development, does not care about TTI anymore but does care more about CLS.
So if you see these changes in Lighthouse, just keep these in mind.
John Mueller from Google confirmed this change does not impact rankings, as we originally reported:
CWV are independent of Lighthouse scores (there might be some components that overlap, but the scoring Lighthouse does is separate).
— johnmu is a ranking factor and so are you (@JohnMu) February 10, 2023
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Friday, February 10th, 2023
Yahoo officially rejects Microsoft
In 2008, rumor became reality as Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s $45 billion bid to buy Yahoo.
The company concluded that the proposal substantially undervalued Yahoo and was not in the best interests of Yahoo and its stockholders.
Microsoft basically rejected Yahoo’s rejection, calling it “unfortunate” and pledging to “pursue all necessary steps” to get what it called its “full and fair” proposal to be accepted.
In other words, this wasn’t the end of the story.
Dig deeper:
Also on this day
2022: The company was working on recovering the data.
2022: The design was a throwback to 2017’s green, boxed ad labels.
2022: Automated and manual extensions could be shown together, Google Ads added a report and they could be added at ad group, campaign, or account level.
2021: Google said it could have a 7% impact on search queries.
2021: Google wanted to display images that were relevant yet visually distinct.
2021: Businesses could message customers through their web browser, not just the mobile app.
2021: Light mode showed a black ad label on a white background but on dark mode, it showed a gray ad label on a black background.
2021: Employers, landlords and credit providers could keep their ads from showing to people of “unknown gender,” enabling discrimination against nonbinary individuals.
2021: Keys to diversity and inclusion include mentorship and promotion of Black search marketers.
2020: It seemed like Google had pushed out some ranking algorithm change over the weekend, resulting in a large shift in the rankings of many websites.
2020: New Posts would publish after the “fix” and rejected Posts would go live that week.
2020: Scale expanded text ad messaging by device or audience – and it worked with Google import.
2020: The products were intended for national and multi-location brands.
2020: After a disappointing opening weekend, the film’s new title began showing up on movie ticket booking sites last night.
2019: The Google webmaster trends analyst also touched on topics like the possibility of an Indexing API, whether internal over-linking penalties exist and how the clustering of duplicate pages works.
2019: The rollout of click share could be seen as a follow-up to the position metrics Google introduced the prior fall, as average position had become less useful.
2019: Bing Ads issued additional guidance for advertisers wanting to target multi-lingual users who may search in multiple languages.
2019: Google was actively testing augmented walking directions with select Local Guides.
2016: GTINs would be required for brand name products sold by multiple merchants.
2015: Google’s John Mueller said there was no whitelist (or “exception lists”) for the Penguin and Panda algorithms.
2015: A $20 billion holiday in the U.S., Mother’s Day-related searches started rising roughly a month in advance, though search habits varied by gift category.
2014: Google started showing complete restaurant menus in its search results when a query specifically looked for menu information.
2014: Google was suggesting racist terms when users searched for a number of UK cities, including Bradford, Leicester and Birmingham.
2014: Bing Ads introduced the full set of conversion fields to all Performance reports.
2014: Business profile pages were changed to emphasize images, featured user reviews and key pieces of local content.
2013: Cutts answers: “How do I know which links to remove when I get an ‘unnatural links’ message?
2013: It was believed that Google paid Apple roughly $3.20 per iOS device, which would avoid the accounting issues arising from a revenue-sharing agreement.
2013: Google led in the number of searches, but had seen a marked drop in unique searchers over the past few months.
2013: The Apple-like ad showed people around the world getting useful and “just in time” information from Google Now.
2013: Although Gates never really said which search engine he used.
2012: Google registered 14 domains.
2011: Google dropped from 66.6% to 65.6% share, still way in front of Bing, Yahoo, and their combined numbers.
2011: Critics argued that once Google became a participant in the travel services market, it might use its advertising dominance to steer consumers to its services, further limiting competition.
2011: Google representatives would meet with local businesses to talk up the benefits of promoting their goods and services through Places.
2011: Nokia would build and distribute Windows Phones as its primary competitive offering to go head-to-head with the iPhone and Android.
2011: Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from January 2011.
2010: A vocal contingent of SEOs were up in arms over Google “offering SEO consulting services.”
2010: For $50 million.
2010: Brin and other Googlers either needed to be enabled to tap into the public version of Google Buzz or open new accounts.
2010: If you searched for something and clicked through to a site with AdSense ads on them, Google would store the query that led to that website and use it 2 or so hours later, when you visited another website with AdSense ads on them.
2010: The PDF download was 28 pages long, 82 questions and answers deep and broken out in 12 categories.
2010: Bing announced that in the near future, it would allow people using StreetSide to look “up” virtually and see what was in the sky.
2010: Yahoo sought to dispel the “misconception” that Yahoo was no longer investing in search.
2009: Cutts said Google.co.jp PageRank was ~5 instead of ~9 and he expected it to stay that way for a while. He also confirmed it was a paid link penalty.
2009: It showed the continuing ascent of Google Maps and the simultaneous decline of MapQuest traffic during 2008.
2009: You could append your current location to your email signature, when you used Gmail or Google Apps email within the Gmail interface.
2009: Microsoft was starting to integrate FAST Search & Transfer’s capabilities into its other products and to market FAST more aggressively.
2009: Ask made a bid to improve its search index and efficiency, having completed a move to a new datacenter.
2009: In exchange for the introduction of fees, BOSS added several new features. Key among them was the ability to monetize results.
2009: Twhirl to the rescue.
2008: Complainant claimed when you turned his social security number upside down, it spelled Google.
2008: Rand Fishkin was slated to share how he popped the question to his fiancee.
2008: Instead of going skiing, as they had traditionally done for their annual company trips, Google went to Disneyland.
2008: Google Images search team debunked a rumor that Google censored an image of an Egyptian football player stripping off his team jersey during the African Cup Of Nations to show a “Sympathize With Gaza” T-shirt underneath.
2008: Maker of the T-mobile “Sidekick” device and the Danger operating system and platform.
2008: Would Android be the success Google was hoping for?
From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)
Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.
< February 10 | Search Marketing History | February 12 >
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Friday, February 10th, 2023
Google will begin to accept and run ads for online horse racing in the following states:
- Maryland
- Pennsylvania
- West Virginia
- Virginia
The Google Ads Gambling and games policy for United States country-specifics will be updated in February 2023.
Advertisers must apply for certification. Application for certification will be open to advertisers who wish to promote online gambling content in the above states on February 22, 2023.
The Gambling and games policy page will be updated when the policy goes into effect.
Why we care. If you or your clients are involved in sports betting, or your brand is in this field, will soon have the opportunity to advertise on Google and target users in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, thereby expanding your reach to potential customers.
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Thursday, February 9th, 2023
When a consumer chooses a business, one of the first things they look at is their Google reviews.
Consumers want to know what other people who have used a company previously think about that business before agreeing to give them their money.
This is why it is essential for business owners to keep track of their Google reviews as well as their competition.
Keeping track of your reviews
There are many tools on the market these days, but I have yet to find one that keeps track of reviews that get deleted. So, I think it is important to keep track of this yourself.
GMB Everywhere
GMB Everywhere is a great tool for keeping track of the number of reviews you have and your average rating.
If you keep track of the number of reviews you have in a spreadsheet you will be able to see if you are losing reviews when Google does “review sweeps.”
In addition, you can see if your average rating is increasing or decreasing.
Of course, if you realize your average rating is decreasing, you need to audit your reviews to determine what you can change about your business.
PlePer
PlePer is another great tool to help businesses know about their competition.
To use it, enter a keyword the tool will tell you the average number of reviews and the average rating based on the businesses listed.
Since we know reviews are so important, keeping track of what your competition is doing matters.
If you keep track of this, you will know if you need more reviews (compared to your competitors) and what your average rating is (compared to your competitors).
All in all, we know that reviews are important for all businesses.
So, it is up to the business owner to ensure they are getting enough reviews and that their review rating stays consistent.
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Thursday, February 9th, 2023
TikTok has expanded its quick Promote ad feature with four new options, making it easier for brands to increase the visibility of their posts through a streamlined campaign creation process within the platform.
The new Promote campaigns. Brands will now be able to:
- Drive more visits to your TikTok page – TikTok’s added a new Promote goal focused on driving traffic back to your TikTok page, as opposed to your website
- Get more messages from potential customers – Prompt more direct interaction in the app with a new ‘more messages’ Promote goal
- Boost other creators’ content – Brands can also now use Promote to amplify content from creators that they’re working with. ‘Creators can also use Promote for others to give a boost to the content, creators and businesses they want the world to see.’
- Target your audience by location – Finally, TikTok’s also added location as another qualifier in its Promote targeting tools, providing more ways for SMBs, in particular, to reach relevant audiences in the app.
Dig deeper. You can read the full announcement from TikTok here.
Why we care. The Promote feature is a convenient method for boosting the performance of your top organic content, as well as the option to promote popular creator clips, offering a way to leverage trending material and optimize your advertising efforts.
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Thursday, February 9th, 2023
Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President & Consumer Marketing Office at Microsoft, announced on Tuesday that Bing Search saw “the largest jump in relevance in two decades” after applying the AI model to the Bing core search ranking engine.
Much of the focus was on the new ChatGPT features in Bing Search, and while our coverage touched on the relevancy aspect, I wanted to pull it out a bit more.
What he said. “But a few weeks ago, something special happened. We applied the AI model to our core search ranking engine and we saw the largest jump in relevance in two decades. We believe we can continue to drive breakthroughs as we improve the models,” Yusuf Mehdi said. You can listen to what he said at the 19:43 mark in this video.
Chart. Yusuf showed this chart documenting the relevancy boost in Bing Search quality:
Bing ranking update. There was indeed a Bing ranking update around January 18th, as Glenn Gabe posted on the Search Engine Roundtable. That was a few weeks prior to this presentation, so the relevancy bump and the previously unconfirmed reports of a Bing search ranking algorithm update prove it.
Yes, Bing did a massive update to how it ranks search results around January 18th. “I received several reports of serious volatility with Bing rankings and traffic starting on January 18th into January 19th, and I dug in a bit across sites. And yes, it does look like there was some type of algorithm update that heavily impacted some sites,” Glenn Gabe wrote.
Why we care. Bing, while it has a much smaller market share compared to Google, is still a player in search. It may be an even larger player in search in the coming months and years if it can continue to improve relevancy and innovate with new search concepts, such as chat and other AI integrations.
We are living during such exciting times ins search right now and expect a lot more from Bing and other search engines.
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Thursday, February 9th, 2023
Microsoft has just announced six new products and features for this month. Let’s dive in.
Expansion into 34 additional markets
Recently, Microsoft Advertising announced its expansion into 34 additional markets, bringing the total number of markets served to 164 globally. The 34 latest markets now available to all Microsoft Advertising customers include:
American Samoa, Anguilla, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Faroe Islands, Gabon, Gibraltar, Greenland, Grenada, Jamaica, Marshall Islands, Niger, Northern Mariana Islands, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Somalia, Suriname, Tonga. Tunisia, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, United States Virgin Islands, and Zambia.
Automated bidding and last-touch attribution on the Microsoft Audience Network
As of today, the Enhanced cost per click (CPC) option is now accessible in all markets across the network. To experiment with alternative bidding methods, you’ll need to consult with your Microsoft Advertising account team.
Additionally, the last-touch attribution feature is now available in all markets of the Microsoft Audience Network. This gives you the ability to adjust your attribution for conversion goals, enabling Microsoft’s automated bidding solutions to consider both click-based and view-through conversions.
Lastly, you can now create and manage your Audience Shopping Campaigns using the Microsoft Editor tool.
Data exclusions for Automated bidding
All automated bidding strategies now come with data exclusions. These exclusions will help Microsoft Advertising’s automated bidding algorithms in the event of website data outages or unexpected changes in conversion tracking. It also ensures that your automated bidding algorithms receive accurate information and maintain optimal performance.
You can find this tool, along with seasonality adjustments and portfolio bid adjustments under Tools -> Planning -> Bid strategies.
New In-market audience segments and pilot for custom combinations
The wording for this update came directly from the Microsoft Blog.
First, In-market audience segments for Valentine’s Day have now launched in India, and are also available in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, and Australia. You can find the complete list under “Valentine’s Day Shoppers.”
Additionally, there is now a pilot to expand the functionality of custom combinations. With the pilot, you’ll be able to create combined lists of the following audience types: Customer Match, Custom Audiences, Remarketing, and Dynamic Remarketing.
Previously, it was only possible to combine Customer Match with other Customer Match lists, or Custom Audiences with other Custom Audiences. Work with your Microsoft Account team to start using this feature.
Conversion tracking enhancements
There are a set of great enhancements we’ve made in the world of conversion tracking:
- Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag deletion: You can now easily disassociate your UET tags when needed.
- Custom events are now simpler and easier to set up.
- Implement conversion tracking easily across all accounts: You can now change the scope of your conversion goals from a single account to “all accounts” as part of the edit workflow. If you have conversion tracking set up only on one account, you can explore this new feature to expand the benefits of conversion tracking to all your accounts with just a click in your advanced settings.
Google Import for Smart Campaigns available in 11 new markets
The Google Import feature simplifies the process of transferring Smart Campaigns from Google Ads to Microsoft Advertising, allowing you to reach even more customers right away. This month, this capability is now accessible in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore.
Dig deeper. You can read the full announcement from Microsoft here.
Why we care. The new updates provide more options and capabilities for advertisers reaching their target audience and achieving advertising goals. With the expanded availability of Microsoft Audience Network, enhanced bidding strategies, and the ability to manage campaigns from within the Microsoft Editor tool, advertisers have greater control over their campaigns and can make more informed decisions about their advertising efforts.
Additionally, the addition of data exclusions and the ability to import Google Smart Campaigns help ensure that advertisers’ campaigns are running smoothly. By taking advantage of these features, advertisers can optimize their campaigns and reach their goals more effectively, driving greater returns on their advertising investment.
Google has had these features for some time, but if advertisers want to expand their market share or give Microsoft Ads a shot, the new features should be familiar.
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Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
With its new Cost-Per-Hour Masthead, YouTube is giving brands and advertisers the ability to buy its most visible placement during the hour(s) leading up to, during or after priority moments such as a sports game or movie release.
What they look like. Here’s what a Masthead ad looks like on a desktop or PC.
Here’s what the ads look like on a mobile device.
Preview your ad. You can see what your ads would look like by using the Masthead Preview Tool.
Technical specs. You can review YouTube’s technical specs for Masthead ads here.
Why we care. YouTube’s Cost-Per-Hour Masthead provides a unique opportunity for advertisers and brands to secure a prominent placement and increase visibility to a large audience. By owning the Masthead, brands and advertisers can maximize reach and impact, delivering their message to a captive audience and potentially increasing conversions.
However, there’s no indication right now how much the Masthead ads cost, or how much of the inventory is available. They may be a better option for national brands versus small or local businesses.
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Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
Twitter announced the new feature in a long Tweet.
need more than 280 characters to express yourself?
we know that lots of you do… and while we love a good thread, sometimes you just want to Tweet everything all at once. we get that.
so we're introducing longer Tweets! you're gonna want to check this out. tap this 
… https://t.co/lge9udRzLE
— Twitter Blue (@TwitterBlue) February 8, 2023
Twitter Blue only. In the announcement, Twitter says, “while only Blue subscribers can post longer Tweets, anyone and everyone can read them. you can reply to, retweet, and quote Tweet a longer Tweet, no matter if you’re a Twitter Blue subscriber or not. subscribers will be able to reply and QT with up to 4,000 characters.”
Why we care. If you’re a Twitter Blue subscriber, this is good news for you. But if you hate long Tweets and threads, you might want to reexamine your following list.
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Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
With all the buzz around generative AI in search, Google today reiterated and clarified some of its advice about AI-generated content.
In short, Google does not care who – or what – writes your content, as long as that content is written to help people and not to manipulate the search results.
Google’s take. Google wrote:
“Our focus on the quality of content, rather than how content is produced, is a useful guide that has helped us deliver reliable, high quality results to users for years.”
– Danny Sullivan and Chris Nelson of the Google Search Quality team
Google went on to explain that you can use AI and automation to create helpful and useful content:
“Automation has long been used to generate helpful content, such as sports scores, weather forecasts, and transcripts.”
Google also said you can use AI to help you write better content:
“AI has the ability to power new levels of expression and creativity, and to serve as a critical tool to help people create great content for the web.”
Focus on people-first content. What you should focus on is not how the content is produced but whether the content is created to help people, not primarily to rank on search engines. Google previously provided its guidance around the helpful content update:
“The helpful content system was introduced last year to better ensure those searching get content created primarily for people, rather than for search ranking purposes. … As explained, however content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.”
Who, How and Why. Google added a new section to the people-first help documentation on “evaluating your content in terms of ‘Who, How, and Why’ as a way to stay on course with what our systems seek to reward.” Google then explained what they mean by who, how and why.
Just to be clear, the who, how and why are not a requirement but rather guidance provided by Google, as is E-E-A-T.
Here is how Google put it (quoting the revisions to the page below):
Who (created the content). Something that helps people intuitively understand the E-E-A-T of content is when it’s clear who created it. That’s the “Who” to consider. When creating content, here are some who-related questions to ask yourself:
- Is it self-evident to your visitors who authored your content?
- Do pages carry a byline, where one might be expected?
- Do bylines lead to further information about the author or authors involved, giving background about them and the areas they write about?
If you’re clearly indicating who created the content, you’re likely aligned with the concepts of E-E-A-T and on a path to success. We strongly encourage adding accurate authorship information, such as bylines to content where readers might expect it.
How (the content was created). It’s helpful to readers to know how a piece of content was produced: this is the “How“ to consider including in your content.
For example, with product reviews, it can build trust with readers when they understand the number of products that were tested, what the test results were, and how the tests were conducted, all accompanied by evidence of the work involved, such as photographs. It’s advice we share more about in our Write high quality product reviews help page.
Many types of content may have a “How” component to them. That can include automated, AI-generated, and AI-assisted content. Sharing details about the processes involved can help readers and visitors better understand any unique and useful role automation may have served.
If automation is used to substantially generate content, here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Is the use of automation, including AI-generation, self-evident to visitors through disclosures or in other ways?
- Are you providing background about how automation or AI-generation was used to create content?
- Are you explaining why automation or AI was seen as useful to produce content?
Overall, AI or automation disclosures are useful for content where someone might think “How was this created?” Consider adding these when it would be reasonably expected. For more, see our blog post and FAQ: Google Search’s guidance about AI-generated content.
Why (was the content created). “Why” is perhaps the most important question to answer about your content. Why is it being created in the first place?
The “why” should be that you’re creating content primarily to help people, content that is useful to visitors if they come to your site directly. If you’re doing this, you’re aligning with E-E-A-T generally and what our core ranking systems seek to reward.
If the “why” is that you’re primarily making content to attract search engine visits, that’s not aligned with what our systems seek to reward. If you use automation, including AI-generation, to produce content for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings, that’s a violation of our spam policies.
FAQs. Google also published this new list of FAQs on the topic of AI-generated content and search:
- Is AI content against Google Search’s guidelines? Appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines. This means that it is not used to generate content primarily to manipulate search rankings, which is against our spam policies.
- Why doesn’t Google Search ban AI content? Automation has long been used in publishing to create useful content. AI can assist with and generate useful content in exciting new ways.
- How will Google Search prevent poor quality AI content from taking over search results? Poor quality content isn’t a new challenge for Google Search to deal with. We’ve been tackling poor quality content created both by humans and automation for years. We have existing systems to determine the helpfulness of content. Other systems work to elevate original news reporting. Our systems continue to be regularly improved.
- How will Google address AI content that potentially propagates misinformation or contradicts consensus on important topics? These issues exist in both human-generated and AI-generated content. However content is produced, our systems look to surface high-quality information from reliable sources, and not information that contradicts well-established consensus on important topics. On topics where information quality is critically important — like health, civic, or financial information — our systems place an even greater emphasis on signals of reliability.
- How can Search determine if AI is being used to spam search results? We have a variety of systems, including SpamBrain, that analyze patterns and signals to help us identify spam content, however it is produced.
- Will AI content rank highly on Search? Using AI doesn’t give content any special gains. It’s just content. If it is useful, helpful, original and satisfies aspects of E-E-A-T, it might do well in Search. If it doesn’t, it might not.
- Should I use AI to generate content? If you see AI as an essential way to help you produce content that is helpful and original, it might be useful to consider. If you see AI as an inexpensive, easy way to game search engine rankings, then no.
- Should I add author bylines to all my content? You should consider having accurate author bylines when readers would reasonably expect it, such as to any content where someone might think, “Who wrote this?” As a reminder, publishers that appear in Google News should use bylines and author information. Learn more on our Google News policies page.
- Should I add AI or automation disclosures to my content? AI or automation disclosures are useful for content where someone might think “How was this created?” Consider adding these when it would be reasonably expected.
- Can I list AI as the author of content? Giving AI an author byline is probably not the best way to follow our recommendation to make clear to readers when AI is part of the content creation process.
Can AI write content that has experience? I asked Google this and Danny Sullivan said not all pieces of content need to showcase experience, expertise, authority and trust. In fact, it is not always possible for every piece of content to hit all marks.
Google reiterated and clarified that trust is the most important part of E-E-A-T, as highlighted in our coverage of the new quality raters guidelines. Google updated this part of this page to add this section, in case you missed it in the revised PDF document.
Google added:
- “Of these aspects, trust is most important. The others contribute to trust, but content doesn’t necessarily have to demonstrate all of them. For example, some content might be helpful based on the experience it demonstrates, while other content might be helpful because of the expertise it shares.”
Why we care. If your goal when using AI is to find creative ways to add further context and information to help your readers, that is great. If you are using AI to find ways to get more content indexed by Google, then that is not great.
How will Google know the difference? Well, they figured it out with content farms, as I described here.
As Google has been saying for longer than most SEOs have been calling themselves an SEO, write content for the people and you will be rewarded. Now, how that content is written does not really matter.
The post Google reiterates guidance on AI-generated content – write content for people appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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