Search engine results pages, including Google's, have become an open-air dump. Mountains of digital junk as far as the eye can see. Heaps of content that uses AI not to enrich and organize information, but with the sole purpose of positioning itself at the top of the results.
Apparently (perhaps even annoyed from setbacks* of its own, of artificial intelligence), the Mountain View company has decided to roll up its sleeves and do spring cleaning in its indices.
The shock announcement: -40% of AI trash online
In a post on the official blog which shook the SEO community like an earthquake, Big G announced a series of updates to its ranking algorithm to clean up search results from “AI trash”. The stated objective is reduce by 40% the presence of junk content online, those created automatically without a shred of added value or originality.
A courageous move that smacks of a showdown: on the one hand, human creativity alone or artificial intelligence used in a creative and virtuous way, on the other, unscrupulous speculators who exploit it to pollute the web in order to earn a few clicks. Let the battle begin.
“Click-catching” content in the viewfinder
The main targets of this offensive are three: content generated automatically by AI and SEO optimized, low quality texts published by third parties on authoritative sites to "steal" rankings and visibility, and old valuable domains exhumed and filled with junk to exploit their reputation. Unfair practices that have transformed entire portions of the web into desolate expanses of mediocrity.
It won't be a simple operation, obviously. Google will have to implement complex refinements of its ranking systems. However, the stakes are very high: the very credibility of the most used search engine in the world and the experience of billions of users who search for answers every day and find themselves inundated with useless or misleading results.
The nightmare of a web invaded by “humanoid SEO content”
The scenario that arises if the phenomenon is not stemmed is nightmarish: a web invaded by armies of artificial "humanoids", programmed only to please Google's algorithms with keywords and links. Cyborgs optimized for ranking but devoid of soul and value for the reader. A dystopian world, which does not console me have predicted, in which originality is banned and quality succumbs under the weight of tons of identical, anonymous and interchangeable texts.
Google has vowed to fight with all its might against this dystopian horror. Because an Internet without authentic and stimulating content, ultimately, is not much different from an Earth invaded by zombies. Except that here feeding on our brains are not ravenous living dead but cold and calculating bots.
A call to (algorithmic) arms: which side are you on?
Big G's announcement sounds like a call to arms for all those who care about the future of the web. SEOs, content creators, marketers, developers: it's time to take sides and choose a side. If Google's operation works, continuing to produce and spread SEO-centric "rubbish" will be increasingly risky and counterproductive.
Much better to focus on quality content, tailor-made for your audience. In-depth, original, capable of offering real added value to those who find them on Google. Content for which artificial intelligence can assume the role of trusted advisor, of an effective tool and not of a human surrogate. Because this is the only way to emerge in the new digital ecosystem that looms on the horizon.
The war on “trash AI” is only just beginning, and I have a feeling we're going to see some good things. Stay tuned, as the good ones say. Google's great cleanup has just begun. And he doesn't intend to take any prisoners.
* I don't really think so, but gratuitous malice would never have occurred to an AI, right?
