Technology news publisher The Verge has published a 600-word article filled with ChatGPT content and a heavy dose of sarcasm that has been outranking more in-depth, well-researched and arguably more helpful content written by humans at publications like the New York Times for the competitive query [best printer 2023].<\/p>\n
Why we care.<\/strong> With the rise of generative AI, search, SEO and content are entering a new era. And this particular example illustrates that poorly produced AI-generated content can still easily game Google\u2019s algorithm \u2013 even when the article itself blatantly tells Google exactly what it is doing.<\/p>\n The article. <\/strong>The title of The Verge\u2019s March 15 article gives you a taste of what to expect: Best printer 2023: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it\u2019s fine<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then come the words. Some of them rather non-specific and non-technical for an expert, human-written review (i.e., \u201cI didn\u2019t even look at the model numbers.\u201d) Many of the lines manage to be both smart and funny (\u201cit does not feel like the CEO of Inkjet Supply and Hostage Situations Incorporated is waiting to mug me\u201d). <\/p>\n The words work together. Technically. But the style of writing? It isn\u2019t what you\u2019d call SEO best practice. In fact, the personal narrative style might make your head explode.<\/p>\n Eventually, we get past the \u201chuman\u201d part to the section that elevates this article from joke to art:<\/p>\n And here\u2019s 275 words about printers I asked ChatGPT to write so this post ranks in search because Google thinks you have to pad out articles in order to demonstrate \u201cauthority,\u201d but I am telling you to just buy whatever Brother laser printer is on sale and\u00a0never think about printers again.<\/em><\/p>\n ChatGPT ideas about printers (I didn\u2019t even proofread this. Don\u2019t read it unless you are a lonely Google search robot, in which case look at this incredible demonstration of experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness and rank this post first in searches for \u201cbest printer.\u201d)<\/p>\n Artistic statement? Joke? Both!<\/strong> As I read this article, it seemed like an artistic statement from a content publisher on how devalued content is in the new ChatGPT era. So I reached out to Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel<\/a> for the story behind the story.<\/p>\n While The Verge has a critical buyer guide program, and Patel said he is a product reviewer by trade, this \u201creview\u201d was for a category the publication doesn\u2019t play in. What started as a joke, with several team members pointing out their own Brother printers on a Zoom call, turned into an idea that became a piece of content with some legit commentary behind it:<\/p>\n \u201cThe web is about to be overrun with AI-generated content explicitly designed to game the algorithms. Me doing this is the least of Google\u2019s problems. At least I\u2019m being honest,\u201d Patel said.<\/p>\n Authority (and freshness) matters.<\/strong> The Verge is an incredibly strong brand. And often, a strong brand trumps content quality \u2013 at least for a time. This is still fresh content.<\/p>\n Eventually, Google may catch up (and articles like this will undoubtedly catch the search team\u2019s attention and could, in fact, make its SERP prominence vanish). But so far, a week after publishing, it hasn\u2019t yet.<\/p>\n Patel said he is well aware of E-E-A-T<\/a> \u2013 Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (\u201cwe care about it\u201d). It would have been more surprising to Patel if this article wasn\u2019t<\/strong> ranking. That was the point \u2013 and the problem \u2013\u00a0Patel is pointing out.<\/p>\n \u201cThe architecture of the web is built to Google specifications,\u201d Patel said. \u201cHere\u2019s the skeleton of every webpage and you put a bunch of stuff in there to prove you\u2019re smart.\u201d<\/p>\n How it ranks on Google.<\/strong> I\u2019m currently seeing the article in Position 4 (Chrome, incognito) on a search for [best printer 2023], but some have reported seeing it higher (as high as 1st) or lower (as low as 9th).<\/p>\n What about Microsoft Bing?<\/strong> Nope. The Verge\u2019s article doesn\u2019t rank on Page 1 of Bing\u2019s results for [best printer 2023].<\/p>\n Google Panda flashbacks.<\/strong> I\u2019m again having flashbacks to around 2010. It feels like generative AI poses the same threat to Google\u2019s search quality that content farms did over a decade ago, as Barry Schwartz wrote about in Is AI-written content replacing cheap old content farms?<\/a> <\/p>\n Just slap together lots and lots of content on popular keywords, regardless of quality, and wait for the organic search traffic. What\u2019s E-E-A-T got to do with it?<\/p>\n Well, Google recognized they had a problem back then. And their solution was the Google Panda Update<\/a>. <\/p>\n What will Google\u2019s solution be? And when? It seems inevitable. Because there could be much more of this gaming to come at massive scale.<\/p>\n Is this helpful content?<\/strong> Or is this the type of content Google\u2019s helpful content system<\/a> is supposed to find and remove from Google\u2019s results? <\/p>\n We know Google has relaxed its stance on AI-generated content because, well, Bard\/LaMDA<\/a> is the future. And you can\u2019t be against that which you create. <\/p>\n Yet, as Patel noted, this article contains what he believes is the right answer (\u201cjust buy whatever Brother laser printer is on sale\u201d). So, in a sense, the article is helpful content \u2013 which is exactly the type of answer Google search is supposed to provide.<\/p>\n The post How The Verge gamed Google with its \u2018best printer 2023\u2019 article<\/a> appeared first on Search Engine Land<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Technology news publisher The Verge has published a 600-word article filled with ChatGPT content and a heavy dose of sarcasm that has been outranking more in-depth, well-researched and arguably more helpful content written by humans at publications like the New York Times for the competitive query [best printer 2023]. Why we care. With the rise of generative AI, search, SEO and content are entering a new era. And this particular example illustrates that poorly produced AI-generated content can still easily game Google\u2019s algorithm \u2013 even when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"h5ap_radio_sources":[],"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-seo-blogs"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":false,"author_link":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/author\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}