AI content vs Human content: What Google thinks

There’s a lot of talk about generative AI in the SEO and content creation communities. Some people say it’s the future of content marketing, while others are skeptical about its effectiveness. So, which is it? Is AI-generated content worth your time and investment, or is it just a passing fad? Can AI content be used for ranking in Google or should you be worried about a Google penalty? 

Let’s explore the pros and cons of using AI to write your SEO content and help you decide whether it’s right for you.

Is AI content writing original or does it contain plagiarized copy?

The SEO and copywriting community has growing concerns about the potential for plagiarism in the use of AI writing tools. After all, if AI is simply copying and pasting existing content, it could easily lead to duplicate content, which is a major no-no in the eyes of Google and other search engines. 

However, it is important to remember that AI is not just a simple copy-and-paste software. Instead, AI tools like Jasper and Copy.ai have the ability to craft content by understanding your requirements (tone of voice, keywords) and then provide you with unique content that meets those needs. The plagiarism and overall risks are low when using cutting-edge tools (which tend to be more expensive).

But there are no free lunches and there are still risks, so let’s discuss them:

Can Google differentiate between AI content and human-generated content?

SEO experts and copywriters are wondering if Google can differentiate between AI content and human-generated content. This curiosity exists because the Google algorithm has always preferred to show hyper-relevant and high-quality resources to users. Google is against mass spamming and dubious efforts of any kind, whether it is keyword stuffing, massive link schemes, plagiarism or duplicate content, and/or user-generated spam. 

In the guidelines for multi-language websites that often have low-quality automated translations, Google writes: “Automated translations don’t always make sense and could be viewed as spam.” 

Google has openly talked about its webspam team that penalizes websites for all of the above. So we are certain that Google is penalizing low-quality content on the web.

But more recently, John Muller admitted on Google’s official Search YouTube Channel that Google believes that AI-generated content is against webmaster guidelines and would likely require a manual penalty if recognized. 

The answer: The current Google algorithm can certainly locate and penalize very low quality and duplicate content, but it cannot inherently differentiate between human and AI-generated content. What this means is that if your AI content generation tool is high quality and it assists you in generating content that provides value to users, it can certainly rank on Google. 

Who doesn’t like an assistant in value generation? So make sure you don’t use it to generate 1,000 automated no-oversight spammy nonsensical articles that use minimal human touch and thin facts. Spammy automated content will certainly eventually lead to a manual Google penalty and a permanent drop in rankings.

Listen to what John Mueller has to say directly from this embedded time-snippet in the video below:

Can AI content rank in Google?

If the content generated automatically is relevant to the users and you can keep oversight of plagiarism and relevance, it can certainly rank. However, there is a risk if these tools are used for what would be considered spam and duplicate content. As John mentioned above, wholly generated AI content is something under the radar for Google’s web spam team to go after and penalize.

So, it’s always a good idea to fact-check and edits your AI-generated content before publishing it, just to be on the safe side. Remember to use it as an inspirational tool rather than a human replacement. So it is important to deliver genuine fresh value to users. So with human editing and extra eyes, you should be able to create high-quality AI-assisted content that ranks well on Google.

Is Jasper.ai a good tool to generate copy for SEO blogs?

Jasper.ai is one of the industry’s most popular options for generating SEO blogs that may rank in Google and bring traffic and leads to businesses. Jasper uses artificial intelligence to generate copy that is optimized for both search engines and human readers. However, like all tools, it has its own set of advantages and risks. Here they are:

Pros: 

• Great for idea generation. Instead of using it to write complete blog posts, it is a great tool for smaller content snippets and generating fast ideas of syntax and fact collection.
• Saves the initial writing process time. It can assist in meeting copywriter’s and company’s copy deadlines. One way to do this is to use the “Outline Generation Template” feature in Jasper. These outlines can result in speeding up the process of producing in-house copy.
• “Content Improver” is a great feature. With this feature, you can put in low-to-medium quality content written by freelancers and convert it into a different tone and increase relative quality. 

Cons: 

• AI-generated copy can lack human emotion and subtle cognition: It can sound robotic (no pun intended).
• There is also the potential for copyright infringement if the tool generates too similar of content to existing sources. 
• There is a risk that Google could penalize your website if it detects that you are using Jasper.ai to generate massive amounts of non-relevant content. 
• AI tools are known to use synonyms and existing copies to shuffle words around and not write originally by incorporating unique thoughts and fresh information. Even though AI tools are evolving and improving, they cannot be relied upon without skepticism. Jasper says that synonym usage can be remediated by pre-writing unique and fresh information in the tool before content creation. 

 

How do I generate content with Jasper?

Step 1: Sign up and login on their website (check their pricing here)

Step 2: After logging in, you will see the Jasper dashboard. In “Templates”, you can filter out what type of content you want to produce. In this example, we will look at blog templates. With these, you can generate topic ideas, do content improvement, write outlines and meta content for your blogs.

You can see the type of Jasper blog templates here:

 

Step 3: Select a template. In this case, we have selected “Intro Paragraph”. When you make this section, you will see 3 options: title, keywords, and tone, as you see in the screenshot below. As you write content within these 3 placeholders, select the number of outputs, and then press Generate button, you will see the amounts (number of AI content generations) of copies on the right side.

Step 4: You can then mark it as Favorite (to save to your internal Jasper cloud) or copy the content using the copy button. 

Important question: How do Jasper’s credits work and how do I get a refund of Jasper’s credits?

Answer: As you generate content, your credits are counted. If you use 1,000 words, you will have spent 1,000 credits. You can get a refund of up to 20% credits per month by downvoting a generated output. Find out more on how Jasper’s credits work.

Is Jasper a better fit for complex or easier copywriting? What’s the actual use case here?

Here we are comparing two scenarios in B2B where we would like to judge Jasper’s ability to perform in easier and complex situations. You will see Jasper’s outputs in the screenshots below:

B2B copywriting scenario 1 — Level: Easy

Topic: Risks in B2B copywriting

When Jasper was assigned to produce AI content for the topic of the “risks for B2B copywriting”, the output was very decent and it was able to locate the right context. However,by the end of the draft, it also outputted pros of B2B content writing, though that was not the assigned topic.

You can read the following output below, as well as check our rating for the output.

 

Rating: 6/10

B2B copywriting scenario 2 — Level: Complex

Topic: Asana vs Wrike

In this example, we compare project management tools Asana vs Wrike to see the output of Jasper and rate it out of 10. Read the screenshot to assess the output for yourself.

 

Rating: 3/10

Can Jasper AI cite sources?

Having truthful and relevant sources in the text body is essential for a good copy – they create credibility for the author, and SEO value because of possible external linking of those sources. 

Here Jasper fails to deliver significantly. It does not reveal any sources of links from where it pulls information. This makes fact-checking a huge problem. So you’ll have to find the sources wither manually or not be able to include them as references.

Can Jasper AI reference statistics in its output?

Quoting the right updated statistics is at the heart of good copy — as high-quality content comes from deep research and fresh information. It is important for these tools to reference dependable statistics in the output. We tried to pull statistics in Jasper for a search around statistics and got the following result:

 

As Jasper does not reveal its sources, it does not inform the user where the statistic is being pulled from, which leads to low credibility. However, in this case, Jasper was able to pull a statistic. In many of our other generated testing

Top FAQs by B2B copywriting teams:

Can I use AI writing tools for paraphrasing?

Yes! Paraphrasing is very important in the B2B copywriting space, where a lot of the time you’ll be working with technical documents that need to be rewritten for a lay audience. AI copywriting tools can help you with this task by providing you with a paraphrased version of the original text. Just remember to review and rewrite with originality to avoid it being flagged as plagiarism and penalized.

Can AI tools write meta titles and meta descriptions?

Yes! It can be quite challenging to write engaging and yet creative metas for a copy that is scheduled to be published on a tight timeline. You can write ideas and let the AI tool generate some cool paragraphs/snippets of text. 

How to generate outlines with AI content writing tools?

Copywriters often struggle to structure their blog posts and general copy documents. This is because B2B copywriting generally requires more research than other types of writing, and it can be difficult to know where to start. The outline function can help you generate these ideas of what sections your draft could include based on the topic.

Can AI tools write social media captions?

Jasper and many other writing assistance tools include the option to generate social media captions. When you couple this ability with the tool’s feature to incorporate tones (funny, witty, professional, etc), you have a great combo to create fun and creative captions that can lead to more bio link clicks. 

Will AI replace content writers? 

No, the use of AI for marketing will not replace content writers. There are a few reasons for this:

• Google has clearly stated its thoughts on AI content as being the target of the web spam team. Using AI content without human review and originality is very risky for your website.
• Artificial intelligence is not yet advanced enough to understand the nuances of language and emotion the way humans do. This means that AI-generated content is often flat and lifeless, without the personality and spark that makes good content great.
• Even if AI could generate perfectly good content, it would still lack the creativity and originality that humans can bring to the table. A big part of what makes content writing interesting and valuable is the human element – our ability to come up with new ideas and perspectives that artificial intelligence simply cannot replicate.
• Finally, even if an AI writer could generate original content, the fact is that people still prefer content that is written by other humans. There is a certain connection that we make with content that is created by another person, and that is something that artificial intelligence will not be able to replicate in the next couple of years.

Finally… you guessed it, this post took inspiration from AI copywriting tool Jasper.

Momin Malik

Momin Malik is Senior SEO Consultant and Project Manager with experience in optimizing search engine rankings for B2B SaaS clients. He believes a deep understanding of search engine algorithms and data-driven strategies is important to drive measurable results. Here he posts his musings to help viewers understand Search and manage SEO and Web projects.