The document summarizes Google's recent updates around helpful and unhelpful content as well as link spam. It discusses signals Google may use to determine if content is designed for users or search engines. The document also covers using AI-generated content and ensuring content has experience, expertise, authority and trust. It provides examples of questions Google may ask to assess content quality and recommendations for using AI in a responsible way.

1. Michael Cottam
SEO Consultant
OzTech, Inc.
17 February 2023

2. • Google’s Helpful Content Updates
• Google’s Link Spam Updates
• E-E-A-T
Experience, Expertise, Authority & Trust
• AI Generated Content
ChatGPT & friends

3. • Google is going after sites and content
that is designed to get search traffic,
instead of answering users’ questions
• Designed for ranking + AdSense vs.
designed for humans
• First-hand information/opinions vs.
summarizing others’ work

4. • HCU uses machine learning
• Signals are applied over months
• What are they learning FROM?

5. Is the content primarily to
attract people from search
engines, rather than made
for humans?
• Could measure with time
on page before returning
to search results

6. Are you producing lots of content on
different topics in hopes that some of it
might perform well in search results?
Are you using extensive automation to
produce content on many topics?
• e.g. templated city pages with
mostly the same content

7. Are you writing about things
simply because they seem
trending and not because you'd
write about them otherwise for
your existing audience?
• Think about news
categories…related stories
(GOOD)
• A local news story about
ChatGPT (probably BAD)

8. Does your content leave readers
feeling like they need to search
again to get better information
from other sources?
• Users bounce back to search
results, click to another site
• Are you covering related topics

9. • Google’s been on a charge this past 12
months, going after link spam
• It seems they’re mostly taking super-weak
spammy domains and no longer counting
them towards PageRank.
• If you’ve been spending $ offshore to get links
from sites with DA less than 20…
If you haven’t already seen a hit to traffic in
Oct/Dec 2022, the clock is ticking

10. Client example:
• Weak backlink profile – only 58 domains
• About half were spammy scraper sites

12. • Experience
• Did you actually try the product?
• Visit the business?
• Go to the scene of the crime yourself?
• Expertise
• Does the author have credentials in this space?
• Authoritativeness
• Is the publisher an authority on this general topic?
• Trustworthiness
• Do other people/organizations trust this publisher?

13. “I skate to where the puck is going
to be, not where it has been”
• Real authors for every story
• Bios with links
• Article schema w/author
• sameAs links for profile pages
• Links to related stories
• Links to your site matter
• Links in social media matter
Hockey star Wayne Gretzky’s famous quote:

14. AI-Generated Content: ChatGPT and Friends

15. • ChatGPT:
• From Open AI
• GPT = Generative Pre-training Transformer
• Trained on wide range of internet documents
• Generates human-like responses
• Recent big investment from Microsoft
• Jasper.AI:
• Similar to ChatGPT
• 100,000 paying customers
• Founded in 2020; market valuation $1.5B
• LaMDA:
• Language Model for Dialogue Applications
• From Google
• Conversational
• Apprentice Bard:
• Also from Google
• Chatbot

16. • It’s not there…yet
• Google & Bing working on it
• Likely to be sort of
“Featured Snippets 2.0”
• Expect cutesy animation

17. Featured Snippets:
• Excerpted from 1 web page
AI/ChatBot/etc.:
• Can look at multiple sources to confirm accuracy

18. 6 days ago, Duane Forrester
asked ChatGTP:
• How many 4 foot segments do I
need to encircle a 14 foot
diameter circle?
ChatGPT’s answer:
• To encircle a 14-foot diameter circle with 4-foot
segments, you will need to use 14/4 = 3.5 segments.
Since you can't use a fraction of a segment, you will need
to use 4 segments to encircle the 14-foot diameter circle.

20. • CNET’s doing it
• BuzzFeed’s doing it
• There will be more…
What if they’re all using the same/similar AI tool?
Now, Google’s Chatbot/Featured Snippet 2.0 thing will see the
same answer at strong, authoritative domains like CNET, BuzzFeed,
etc.
…therefore it must be right.

21. Right now:
• Probably not--at least
not with any
consistency
However:
• Still recommend against
the CNET approach of
gen-the-content + lite
proofing/editing

22. ChatGPT is really no different than using an outsourced
copywriter/researcher instead of a reporter
• The reporter might not be a subject matter
expert in the specific topic, but they probably
have a general understanding of the area of
discussion
• The reporter also has the ability to read/listen to
a source and make a judgment call:
• Do they know what they're talking about?
• Are they all hot air?
• Is this a source I've trusted in the past? does
this source have a reputation (good or bad)?

23. Use AI For:
• Doing initial research
• Saving time writing 1st draft
• Do it in chunks (subtopics)
• Do some of your own research to see what's
missed/wrong