What Google’s new search quality guidelines mean for generative AI content

If you’re hoping to create one perfect piece of content so manipulative that it sends your site straight to the top of Google Search, I’ve got some bad news. Exactly how Google’s algorithm works remains a bit of a mystery. What Google has made crystal clear, however, is how its team assesses the quality of its search results.

Their process is straightforward, if intentionally subjective: human evaluators assess the quality of Google Search results by looking at two main sets of criteria. They use these criteria to provide feedback to Google’s programmers, who, in theory, then use their insights to adjust the search algorithm in their ongoing mission to ensure that Google Search results remain useful to searchers. 

The first set of criteria is E-E-A-T, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. 

The second is YMYL, or “Your Money or Your Life,” which applies extra scrutiny to search results related to finance, health, and other critical topics.

What’s changed?

Here’s where it gets interesting. Google has recently updated its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines and, for the first time, they now explicitly address generative AI content. 

Until now, these guidelines had largely overlooked AI-generated material, but this update defines generative AI, explains how it can be used, and, crucially, highlights how it can be misused to create the kind of “low quality” content Google wants to refine its Search algorithm to avoid.

Google, of course, also puts its own Gemini AI summaries at the top of many Search results – but we’ll cover that in a future article. For now, let’s explore what Google’s new guidelines mean for content where AI has played a role in its creation. 

What Google has to say about generative AI

In short, Google defines generative AI as models which create new content based on old data. Their concern is that the overuse of generative AI online could lead to a deluge of low quality content that makes Google Search a less useful tool for browsers. 

In particular, they highlight: 

• Scaled content: Using AI to churn out a large number of low quality pages.
• Lack of originality: Using AI to create content that is paraphrased or copied with little to no effort – essentially summarising info which can be found elsewhere in a single source. 
• Lack of value: Pages that don’t offer unique insights or meaningful additions to existing content. 

So, while AI-generated content isn’t automatically penalised, Google’s evaluators are now explicitly looking for content that adds little to no value compared to what’s already online. 

This means AI-generated content at scale, without any human effort to enhance it, is likely to receive the lowest quality rating. There are also some more subtle implications for your website’s content that connect to Google’s bigger picture philosophy. 

What is Google looking for that AI can’t provide?

AI struggles with the most recent addition to Google’s E-E-A-T (formerly E-A-T) criteria: Experience. While AI can mimic expertise, authority, and even trustworthiness to some degree, it can’t provide genuinely novel insights born from real-world experience.

AI can only remix existing content and data that’s already out there on the web. It can’t share first-hand knowledge, case studies, or subjective opinions derived from experience. That’s why Google is pushing for content that demonstrates authentic human insight rather than repackaged summaries of what’s already out there. It’s not that they’re against AI, but they are very conscious of its limits. 

So how can you use AI in content creation?

Google isn’t saying you can’t use AI at all. Instead, the focus is on how AI is used in content creation. 

If you want to use AI to save time while still creating high quality content, you can use AI for planning and structuring, not for direct content generation. AI can help you outline ideas, organise research or interview notes, and refine your writing – as long as you’re already bringing in useful, authentic content from the outside world.

Prioritise including unique experiences and real-world perspectives. Case studies, expert opinions, real anecdotes – all of these help to add value to your audience that readers won’t be able to find elsewhere.

The bottom line

The details of Google’s algorithm may be a mystery, but Google’s goals are clear: they want it to prioritise original, insightful content led by real-world experience, not just rehashes of information that can be found elsewhere. 

Google isn’t worried about AI content in principle, but the kind of content AI tends to create is often not up to the quality that Google wants for its Search results. When Google added “Experience” to its E-E-A-T guidelines, they clarified that: 

These are not fundamentally new ideas […] Rather, we hope these updates better capture the nuances of how people look for information and the diversity of quality information that exists in the world.

The same can be said now for Google’s new consideration of generative AI. It’s not that there is suddenly a list of new guidelines to follow, it’s that Google is adding AI-related considerations to the mix while pursuing the same quality results that they’ve always aimed for. 

Rather than viewing AI as a shortcut to ranking highly on Google, use it to enhance your ability to provide genuinely valuable content. The best content – the kind Google wants to rank – will always come from those who can add something new to the conversation, not just reword what’s already out there.

Learn more about story-driven content

Read Socialise: Unlock your content, maximise social media engagement and win more work than ever before by Iain Scott, Rebecca Holloway and Charlie Stewart

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