Is AI-written content replacing cheap old content farms? - Search Engine Land

The Verge has a piece up today named Inside CNET’s AI-powered SEO money machine. It covers much of what we report in our story; Google search responds to BankRate, more brands using AI to write content last week but dives more into how the company is using machines to replace low-cost humans to generate low-quality content that aims to rank well in search.

Google’s algorithms. All of this reminds me of the Google Panda update days, where Google built algorithms to detect content farms and content written with the purpose of generating search traffic. Now, with the helpful content update, that specifically aims to discount content written for search rankings (and not for users) – this strategy deployed by the Red Ventures websites seems like it is set up to fail ultimately – that is, if Google’s algorithms do what they say they will do.

Red Ventures goal. According to The Verge, “Red Ventures’ business model is straightforward and explicit: it publishes content designed to rank highly in Google search for “high-intent” queries and then monetizes that traffic with lucrative affiliate links.” That specifically goes against Google’s latest helpful content update algorithm that aims to downgrade sites where content is written for search engines first, i.e. content written to rank in search and not help people.

The article goes on to explain how these sites are trying to rank well in the credit card space, and turn that traffic into clicks to affiliate revenue. “Red Ventures has...

Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.