Can AI Content Rank In Search Results?

AI has proven to strengthen some companies’ content marketing strategy, with 43.8% of businesses reporting success. But while it has its value, the question ‘can AI content rank in search results?’ has been a much-discussed topic. 

Here, we share our own two cents on the matter, answering key questions related to AI’s role in search engine rankings and content.

Can AI content rank in search results?

The short answer to this question is ‘yes’. AI content is much like other copy in that Google uses the same criteria to rank it in terms of quality, relevance, uniqueness, authoritativeness, and meeting the search objective. Specifically, they require all content to be optimised for E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness).

Like copy written by humans, search engines advise that AI content should do the following to rank well:

• Contain accurate, reliable information that’s supported by credible sources
• Show prowess and authority on the subject matter at hand
• Meet the search intent, providing pertinent and useful information for the target audience
• Be original and unique 
• Be well-written and clear, including no spelling or grammar mistakes
• Adhere to best practices for search engine optimisation (including those related to keywords, headings, meta tags, and internal and external links)

Why is high-quality content important?

Although AI-generated content can rank, it’s not without its issues. It’s long been recommended by Google and other search engines to create high-quality written copy to appear in results. That means not:

• Overusing keywords
• Using spam links
• Producing duplicate or irrelevant content (this risks damaging your reputation and credibility)
• Publishing copy that’s in any way deceptive, incorrect, or unethical – if you do, you may breach Google’s quality and Google Search Essentials guidelines

As always, the focus shouldn’t be on creating copy that’s search engine optimised. Instead, the emphasis is on it being made for the user. If AI copy is only generated to influence search engine results, then Google may penalise it. This is because AI content that doesn’t involve a human can:

• Contain duplicate copy from other sources
• Be inaccurate
• Be misleading or harmful, leading to ethical and legal issues
• Lack quality due to the AI software’s shortcomings 

Do search engines prefer content written by AI?

Google has previously said that the use of AI is against their spam policy, although they’ve also stated that not all automated or AI-generated content will be viewed as spam. What Google does favour is copy that is data-driven, interactive, and visual as these types can provide factual, engaging, and appealing content for the reader.

In fact, Google has revealed that AI-generated content is fine provided that it follows the E-E-A-T guidelines. They even changed the wording of their philosophy around valuable content from “helpful content written by people, for people” to “helpful content created for people”. 

Ultimately, it seems that search engines have no specific preference over whether content has been generated by AI or a human – it’s all about its relevance for users. That means the following also matters:

• User experience – This includes the loading speed, responsiveness, readability, and web page navigation on different devices and browsers
• Engagement potential – This includes the clickthrough rate, bounce rate, dwell time, and social shares
• Freshness – This is how often the content is updated and its pertinence to current trends and events

Does AI-generated content improve search engine rankings?

Digital and SEO expert Neil Patel analysed a sample of sites that used only AI-written content and found that they fell eight positions in the SERPs – and their traffic reduced by 17%! Even those that had some sort of human involvement dropped three positions in the SERPs and saw a traffic decrease of 6%.

These stats speak for themselves. If you’re generating AI copy for the sake of cutting costs, then you’re likely to experience negative effects like falling search engine rankings. Although AI can be effectively used to streamline the creation process, a human needs to be involved to get the best results in terms of SEO, quality, and more.

What is the role of a content strategy? 

We think we’ve made it clear in this blog that the answer to the question ‘can AI content rank in search results?’ is ‘yes’ but human input is crucial. And to know how to use both AI and human input effectively to rank on search engines, it’s important to have an SEO content strategy in place. 

A good SEO strategy should draw on the most recent SEO best practices and meet the E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) guidelines while also satisfying the needs of your audience and their specific search. It should also involve all relevant content, like your website, blog, and any product descriptions.

Not sure where to start? Here at Making You Content, we’ll work closely with you to build a solid content strategy. Our team will draw on your objectives and competitor research, creating relevant topic clusters to rank as well as give your audience the most valuable experience possible. Plus, through our SEO content agency partner, our strategies can take care of behind the scenes too – including crawlability, indexability, architecture, and structure.

Create an SEO content strategy with MYC

Curious to see what we could do for your business and its marketing? Get in touch with us to discover the role we can play in supporting your SEO and content objectives. You can also find out more about our SEO content strategy service here.