You’ve probably been served an ad, received an email, or seen a blog post from an agency boasting optimizing your site with AI SEO. Seems great, right? Spend less than a quarter of the money you would on human driven SEO and receive a service that even Google is using. 

As artificial intelligence increases its place in digital, this doesn’t feel like a reach. But here’s the thing: It’s objectively wrong. 

AI cannot do much for your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. 

The opposite, in fact: Google is configured to recognize and flag AI-generated website influence, and AI-generated content especially. When it does, it penalizes a website’s SEO standing. Because, despite leveraging AI in many ways, Google is still on a quest to reward content created by bona fide humans, not machines. In other words, Google wants websites to amp up their humanness, which Google will then identify and reward by way of increased website visibility – which they do, yes, via AI. 

THE SOURCE OF THE CONFUSION 

Google introduced Google AI back in 2017. Google AI incorporates artificial intelligence into just about every aspect of the software behemoth’s back-end algorithms and user experience, from how it processes user commands to better identifying relevant sub topics and related content. Many people assume that because Google is pro-AI in terms of its own mechanism of action, it will also reward AI generated content on websites. But as explained, that’s not the case, thanks in large part to Google’s reliance on E-E-A-T. 

E-E-A-T EXPLAINED 

Short for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (and previously just E-A-T – “Experience” was added in 2022), E-E-A-T is a key aspect of Google’s AI-driven Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (SQEG). E-E-A-T rewards sites for providing accurate and relevant content by increasing search visibility. An illustration of how E-E-A-T works:  

Let’s say there are two competing websites, both about caring for dogs. Website #1 has an AI-generated headline that reads, “Feed your dog chocolate!” (as most people know, chocolate is toxic to dogs). Word gets out. This site gets a ton of traffic from outraged animal advocates who come to witness this reckless, incorrect messaging for themselves. They scour the site for other hazardous content and share the website on social media with comments like, “Look at this irresponsible company! Boycott them! Don’t let them near your dogs! Report them to the Better Business Bureau!” Traffic on website #1 soars. 

Meanwhile, website #2 features interviews with veterinarians providing reliable information on how and why chocolate is bad for dogs. It’s sound advice – but this site doesn’t have nearly as much traffic as website #1. By the letter of SEO law (which sees activity as legitimizing, and boosts high traffic sites in SEO rankings), this site would drop in rankings while irresponsible website #1 soars. Enter E-E-A-T. Designed to assess language nuance – like false information and computers trying to sound like humans – E-E-A-T’s discerning capabilities realize that website #1 traffic is increasing not because of authentic or accurate content, but because of inaccurate and machine-written messaging. It alters Google search results in favor of website #2 – the reliable dog site – while penalizing website #1, despite its flurry of traffic, shares, and activity. 

SO, WHAT ARE THOSE “AI SEO” AGENCIES ACTUALLY SELLING? 

Circling back to where we started: 

Those agencies promising “AI SEO”? All their AI is doing is highlighting technical issues like slow page load times, no meta descriptions, etc. on a site. This is technical SEO. It’s great for small things like a keyword focus or finding good links within your site, but telling AI to think and write like a human is going to give your website computer-trying-to-be-a-human content. And when this brand of robotic content (or content that’s incorrect, stolen, or generic, also often the case when content is AI-generated) appears on your website, it doesn’t matter how good your AI-driven technical SEO is – your site could still rank dead last. 

SO NOW WHAT? 

It’s tempting, AI SEO agencies are cheap relative to human ones. But in this case, you get what you pay for. Don’t waste time and money on “AI SEO” that’s little more than basic optimization. 

Turn to Hammer Marketing. Our SEO team boasts 40+ years of combined SEO experience, from on-page and technical to content and algorithmic trends. All day, every day, we predict, implement, and adjust as needed, even more so when content updates roll out or when Google changes its algorithms. Our constant learning approach means we never dare think we’ve reached the pinnacle of SEO knowledge and execution; rather, we expect to improve, evolve, and adjust, which is the name of the SEO game.

See how effective SEO can help to move you up in search rankings – without empty promises. Reach out to Hammer Marketing today!