AI-Generated Articles Now Rank Higher In Google Search Than TechCrunch, TheVerge, Wired, And More

This article was originally posted on generativeai.pub.

Things just got from bad to worse.

When Google rolled out the March 2024 core update, thousands of websites experienced a significant drop in search rankings, resulting in a massive decline in their stats and revenue.

I am one of those badly affected.

Here is Google’s statement from the update on this matter:

“Our long-standing spam policy has been that use of automation, including generative AI, is spam if the primary purpose is manipulating ranking in Search results. The updated policy is in the same spirit as our previous policy and based on the same principle. It’s been expanded to account for more sophisticated scaled content creation methods where it isn’t always clear whether low-quality content was created purely through automation.”

The update specifically targeted websites using AI to churn out low-quality, spammy, and unoriginal content.

You can read more about the March 2024 update here:

New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search
We're making updates to show less unoriginal, low-quality content on Search.blog.google

But what I discovered today really surprised me. AI-generated articles from Perplexity rank higher than those from established tech websites like TechCrunch, The Verge, and Wired.

As you can see in the screenshot below, I searched for “WWDC 2024.”

So what just happened here?

This is terrible news for writers who pour their expertise and passion into their work, only to be overshadowed by AI. I wrote a similar article below for four hours, but it didn’t even make the first two pages on SERP.

Apple’s 5 Huge AI Announcements at WWDC 2024
Apple finally unveiled Apple Intelligence with new Siri, AI writing tools, ChatGPT integration, Image Playground, and…generativeai.pub

What is a Perplexity Page?

Perplexity Pages is a new tool that transforms a researched topic into a well-structured, beautifully formatted article with ease. Users can publish the generated article in Perplexity’s library of user-generated content and share it directly with their audience with just one click.

You can share the published Page on platforms like X (formerly Twitter), WhatsApp, and Facebook, or by copying the link to share elsewhere.

Once the article is published, Google will rank it just like an article on your blog.

I won’t go into the details of how Perplexity Pages work and how to get access to them. You can check the article if you want to learn more:

Perplexity Introduces ‘Pages’ — The Most Powerful AI Article Generator
People are calling it AI Wikipedia — here’s how you can get started with the new Perplexity Pages.generativeai.pub

AI Over Humans

The crux of the issue lies in the fact that Perplexity Pages are already ranking higher than articles written by real humans.

To put it plainly, AI-generated articles that take mere seconds to produce are being prioritized by Google over meticulously crafted pieces that require hours or even days to write.

To be fair, the WWDC 2024 article generated with Perplexity Pages looks pretty decent. The images and references are well-cited, and the content itself is concise and informative.

But man, the similar articles from TheVerge, TechCrunch, and Wired were pushed aside and Google decided to rank the Perplexity Page — a webpage based on generated data sourced from other web pages.

Does this mean Google’s algorithm can’t recognize the Perplexity Page as an AI-generated piece?

Or does Google not really care if it’s AI-generated as long as it’s high-quality?

We are moving towards a digital landscape where speed and efficiency trump quality and authenticity. I hate it.

Google Embraces AI-generated Content

I checked Google’s Search guidance about AI-generated content and found that AI-generated content will still rank high as long as it is high-quality.

Google doesn’t penalize AI-generated content outright. Instead, it evaluates this content just like it would human-written work, ensuring it fulfills E-E-A-T criteria and offers a positive user experience.

The acronym “E-E-A-T” stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

So there you have it. Google thinks that the article generated by Perplexity is high-quality, which is why it ranked high on SERP.

Final Thoughts

The core update’s purported goal was to reduce AI-generated spam on the internet. However, the prioritization of AI-generated content like Perplexity Pages seems to contradict this objective.

In my previous article, I praised Perplexity for creating such a useful feature for writing article drafts and research purposes. But now I am deeply concerned about it saturating the internet with recycled content from human works.

Day by day, I am becoming more convinced that Google Search is broken and needs to be fixed. The Google AI overview was terrible, and now the search ranking is also getting really bad.

‍