Publishers’ strategy and the future of AI content
A few months since our last journey on the Google merry-go-’round with September 2023’s Helpful Content Update and all was obviously too quiet. Cue the March 2024 Core Update which our helpful quote machine John Mueller described as “a big one”.
Google have been slowly changing their publisher recommendations for a while. Adding a sentence here or there which all pointed to seemingly one outcome – they want to give “real people” ™ priority using EEAT criteria. Without explicitly saying a big no no to AI content generation, it was probably our first clues as to the direction of the March 2024 Update.
Yet, at the same time, we see reports of major news publishers like News Corp and G/O Media heavily lean in to AI generation. Killing their newsroom and lauding the possibility of AI content machines buffing their profit lines when they don’t need to pay those stinky real people that Google says are so important for content generation.
Generate it and they will come… until Google says they can’t
If you’re not a frequent flier in the Twitter (or X, sorry Elon) SEO communities, I’ll catch you up; programmatic SEO was the next big thing. That is, using generative AI to spin up 100,000 pages on a niche site and sitting back to watch your Google Search Console climb up. Tools like OpenAI ain’t free, so no doubt many niche site owners had invested heavily. Some paid off, of course, until…
De-indexes! Search Console plummeting to zero! All heck breaking loose!
Needless to say, many smaller site owners were both bemused and angry. Some (proabably unwisely) are choosing to double down on generative content to make up for the drops in traffic. Other SEO gurus quite smugly post about how they were right all along in telling nobody to use it.
All in all, it’s a confusing picture. Google say the March 2024 Update will take a full month to roll out, which is a strange way of admitting they might get things wrong and need time to tweak. Perhaps Google’s new Head of Search, Liz Reid, can have some calming influence there. By all accounts she seems like a veteran who also isn’t afraid of shaking things up.
The future
Right now, it definitely seems like most mid-tier publishers have some critical future strategy decisions to make. There’s no denying the huge time and energy-saving applications of generative AI. But at the same time, it might be like building your rather valuable publishing house on sand.
A philosopher by education with 15+ years leading sales and commercial development in SaaS, Enterprise and AI businesses. Chief Revenue Officer at Thaiger Group, Growth Director at ThaigerAI. I have been fortunate enough to ground my career in two key passions; understanding customers deeply and helping people become the best versions of themselves. For nearly two decades I’ve led global technology businesses by listening closely to customers, building strong teams, and driving structured and high standards of innovation. For me, lasting and meaningful growth comes from listening first, leading with empathy and solving problems that make a difference to all sides.
One response
A few of my sites got HIT badly. Hoping they reverse some of the changes soon, cause even the posts I wrote by hand got de-ranked! Crazy stuff