Can AI Content Rank on Google? – An Ongoing Experiment

Exploring the Benefits and Challenges of AI

The utilization of AI in content development offers numerous benefits. AI excels at creating content, improving paragraphs, and suggesting titles for articles, thereby significantly speeding up the development process.

However, for our experiment, our primary interest was determining how well a website would rank solely with AI-generated content. As it turns out, the results have been less than satisfactory thus far.

Our study has shed light on the complexities involved in relying solely on AI-generated content for website ranking, highlighting the need for a balanced approach that integrates the strengths of both AI and traditional copywriting.

To conduct this study, we employed Domain X, a completely new domain with no search history and Domain Y, a domain with a two year search history.

Domain X

The first domain was fresh, lacking any prior activity or history. During the course of our study, we published 30 pieces of content on Domain X, all of which covered various vacation-related topics for a highly searched vacation destination.

Impressions Soar in the Initial Month

During the initial month, the website experienced modest but notable increases in impressions through Google Search Console, following a traditional content scale. The second month started strong and reached a peak in the middle, but towards the end, the momentum began to wane. While this month initially appeared promising and served as a positive indicator for future months, the momentum ultimately dissipated. Despite this, the domain managed to reach its peak with 1,820 impressions and two clicks.

Google’s Algorithm Update Dealt a Blow to Our Review-Focused Study

Unfortunately, our efforts were impeded by a recent algorithm update by Google in April 2023, specifically targeting websites with review-related content, which was the focus of our study.

The nature of our website, which involved writing reviews of places and destinations, was adversely affected by this algorithm update, thereby impacting the outcome of our research.

Domain Y

On the two-year-old domain, we published a total of 30 articles, consisting of 15 articles generated solely by AI and 15 articles written by content writers. This balanced composition resulted in a 50% AI-generated content and 50% traditional copywriting ratio.

Traditional Content Outperforms AI Content

As of now the best ranking articles, from Domain Y are the one’s developed by copywriters. In fact our AI generated content has received little to no organic traffic. Even though the subject and substance is better than the content written by copywriters.

Key Takeaways

• AI excels in content creation, paragraph improvement, and title suggestions, speeding up the development process.
• Ranking websites solely with AI-generated content has shown limitations and challenges.
• Balancing AI and traditional copywriting is essential for optimal content development and website rankings.

Achieving Optimal Content Development

Acknowledging the evolving landscape of search engine algorithms and their potential implications for content development strategies is crucial. While AI remains a powerful tool, it is essential to consider the context, purpose, and alignment with search engine guidelines to achieve optimal results for your businesses marketing strategy.

How to Use AI in Your Marketing Strategy

If you want to use AI in your marketing strategy use it knowing the weaknesses and strengths. As of now the biggest strengths of AI is Speed, Speed, and Speed.

1. Email and Social: Leverage AI for quick turn around articles for social media or email marketing campaigns. Those channels do not wholly rely on Google’s algorithm to determine success.

2. First Drafts: AI is great at creating rough drafts on really complicated topics. But treat them more as a rough draft meant to be improved by human hands and gray matter thoughts.

How Not to Use AI

As of now it seems a recent Google update has mitigated SERP spam by targeting content categories most likely to encourage spam which includes, reviews about products, services, and things. But due to the value of organic search traffic for businesses i’m sure that will still incentives people to attempt to spam SERPs.

Further Research on AI and Organic Search

In light of these findings, we will conduct further research and experimentation to better understand the interplay between AI-generated content, search engine algorithms, and website rankings. By continuously adapting our strategies, we can harness the benefits of AI while navigating the challenges to ensure the long-term success of content development endeavors.

Conclusion

In conclusion, our study on the benefits of AI in content development revealed both promising outcomes and challenges. Using AI in content development provides benefits in creating, improving, and suggesting content. However, relying solely on AI-generated content for website ranking has shown limitations. Balancing AI with traditional copywriting is crucial for optimal content development and website rankings.