Meredith's husband: [00:00:00] Hey, this is Meredith's husband. I've got some SEO advice for you, but I'm gonna keep it really simple so that you can understand it so it makes sense, and most importantly, so you can actually use it.

Meredith's husband: We are gonna do three things today. 

Meredith: Okay? 

Meredith's husband: Number one, yes, 

Meredith: podcast. 

Meredith's husband: You're gonna help podcast shape the future of this podcast. 

Meredith: I am. 

Meredith's husband: Well, everybody listening? 

Meredith: Oh. Oh, that's exciting. That's much more, much more reliable. 

Meredith's husband: So hold on. Strap in. Number two, AI slop. We're going to address what they call AI slop. This is a 

Meredith: slop.

Meredith's husband: Slop. This is a term I like. It loppy. It just her. Yeah. What, what is that? And, and then number three, what you can do about it as a consumer and as a blogger. 

Meredith: Okay. 

Meredith's husband: Oh, right. Let's shape the future first. 

Meredith: Let's shape the future. 

Meredith's husband: Yeah. So in doing this podcast, one of [00:01:00] the stats that I get is like, how many different episodes get downloaded?

Meredith: Okay. 

Meredith's husband: And which, which episodes get the most downloads essentially. Right. That's the only thing I can tell. I don't know which topics are most appreciated. 

Meredith: Yeah, 

Meredith's husband: I can see that a lot of the AI episodes whoa, get a lot of downloads. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. And we've done more AI episodes than I realized.

Meredith's husband: I just recently looked back at a lot of the titles from the most recent episodes and a lot having to do with ai. 

Meredith: Well, there's a lot of ai, 

Meredith's husband: but what I'm curious about is what do people like the most? Is it episodes about ai? Yeah. Or that include AI and how it's changing SEO. Yeah. Is it like strict how to guides?

Meredith's husband: Like I talk about how to do your image tags right. And how to do your site map. Hmm. How strict how toss? Yeah. Or is it something else? Hmm. So I put a little survey down below. Scroll to the bottom of the show notes. It's very simple. You can do it on your phone. It's anonymous. It should take no more than 10 seconds.

Meredith: Is there, is there, is there an other [00:02:00] where people can write in? There 

Meredith's husband: is. There is another, yeah. 

Meredith: Oh, very clever. 

Meredith's husband: So that's number one. 

Meredith: Okay. 

Meredith's husband: Help shape the future. Number two. 

Meredith: Yes. 

Meredith's husband: So I was talking to a neighbor Yes. Probably a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And he was telling me about this. Bigfoot vlog is this Will, this is Will, Hey, will a lovely neighbor.

Meredith's husband: Yeah. Uh, he was telling me about this Bigfoot vlog channel on, uh, YouTube 

Meredith: Uhhuh, 

Meredith's husband: and I checked it out and it's pretty funny. Like it's pretty good. It is completely AI generated 

Meredith: and it's all about Bigfoot. 

Meredith's husband: It's like Bigfoot trying to, it's imagine Bigfoot, 

Meredith: uh, 

Meredith's husband: trying to become an influencer. Oh, geez. He, he can speak.

Meredith's husband: It is, it's kind of hilarious, to be honest. 

Meredith: Is it like the caveman, Geico, caveman. 

Meredith's husband: A little bit. 

Meredith: Yeah, that's kind 

Meredith's husband: of what I, not dissimilar. It is pretty funny. It is pretty original. I enjoyed several, uh, different episode, not episodes. They're, they're really short segments, but then since I did that, my feed has become [00:03:00] littered with number one other bigfoot vlog videos and all sorts of these AI generated videos.

Meredith: Well, of which there have to be. 

Meredith's husband: Uh, they're, they seem to be never ending. 

Meredith: Yeah. 

Meredith's husband: And I recently learned from John Oliver. Yes. Uh, so last week, tonight a show which I, uh, really, really used to like, but now just find kind of depressing in the Oh yeah. It's 'cause it's so, it's so on point. Yeah. That I can't take it.

Meredith's husband: But he didn't, I it's 

Meredith: so like, edge to it. 'cause it's just true. 

Meredith's husband: No, there is an absolute edge to it. That's, I, I don't, I don't because it's, but 

Meredith: it's true. That's what I, but what I'm, I don't need 

Meredith's husband: any more edge in my life. Right. Like, I've got Right. Fair enough. Fair enough. You know. It's called AI slop and there is a ton of it.

Meredith: Slop. Like SLOP. 

Meredith's husband: Yes. 

Meredith: I just have to keep spelling it to make sure it's right. 

Meredith's husband: And what AI slop is, is it refers to this mass generated AI content. Yeah. Typically lower quality. And the bigfoot vlog, I'm not saying is lower quality. I, like I said, I found it quite entertaining. Mm-hmm. But it entertaining, but it led me into a whole bunch of these others.

Meredith's husband: [00:04:00] Like that. Honestly, I sit there and I watch some stuff on YouTube and I just feel dumber after I watch it. If I could get more stupider, it's, I just feel like an idiot after. Yeah. Spending 20 minutes watching shit that is generated by a computer. I 

Meredith: know. At least it's only 20 minutes. 

Meredith's husband: Okay. Well, it's more like two hours, 

Meredith: but, okay.

Meredith: Well, yeah. Welcome to the world. 

Meredith's husband: So this also, so my. Feet has, and YouTube has become dominated by all of this stuff. And I did come across a video of somebody who was just really frustrated about Pinterest. 

Meredith: Yeah, 

Meredith's husband: she was a fan of Pinterest or past tense, used to be a fan of Pinterest, but was complain.

Meredith's husband: Making a YouTube video about how much she has is now disappointed in Pinterest. Why? Because it's all AI generated images. What? Yeah. She says, oh, all of these are like ai and she's a younger person so she can identify this stuff. Oh, wow. More quickly than, than I [00:05:00] can. Absolutely. Anyway. Uh, but she's like, these are all AI generated.

Meredith's husband: Why am I wasting my time on this stuff? 

Meredith: Right. 

Meredith's husband: So I feel the same as this Pinterest user. 

Meredith: Yeah. 

Meredith's husband: I'm really not interested in looking at content that was generated by a machine. No. And at the same time, I recently saw another stat. Which came from, I'm not sure where it came from. I think it was a Ahrefs, the, the website, a Ahrefs, it found, it did a study somehow and it found that 76% of all new webpages.

Meredith's husband: Mm-hmm. So every webpage being 

Meredith: 76%, 70, 

Meredith's husband: 76% of all new webpage. Okay. Contain AI generated content. 

Meredith: Wow. 

Meredith's husband: At least some, so it's so, it's like, mm, I mean, it's everywhere. And so the problem becomes not, not the problem, a problem, a problem, a problem from my perspective is like how, how do you tell the difference?

Meredith's husband: And this is nothing. How do you tell this is nothing, this is nothing new. But it does remind me of something that the CEO of go, the former [00:06:00] CEO of Google. Once said in an interview, and this was after he had stepped down, so it wasn't like he was, had something to promote as CEO. Okay. It was more than one of those, like more candid interviews, Uhhuh, and he was saying that yes, there's gonna be a ton of AI generated content.

Meredith's husband: Whether that's images on Pinterest or like news stories. 

Meredith: Oh gosh. 

Meredith's husband: And you're going to need, he was saying that the, you're going to need an AI assistant Oh. Said this to help you. Yes, I remember 

Meredith: you told me. But you haven't told the listeners. 

Meredith's husband: He's like, you every, we're all gonna have AI assistance. Oh my God.

Meredith's husband: And this was years ago that he said this. He said, we're all gonna have AI assistance to tell us what is fake and what is real, what was generated by AI and what was not generated 

Meredith: by that, and how are we gonna trust that? 

Meredith's husband: Well, my theory is, if anything, yeah, if there's any way that we can even reasonably tell the difference between AI generated content and human generated generated content.

Meredith's husband: AI is gonna be able to [00:07:00] help us do that. 

Meredith: This is true. 

Meredith's husband: Okay. 

Meredith: Yeah, 

Meredith's husband: so, and he, I don't think this has happened yet. Like we don't have AI assistance to help us do that. Yet. 

Meredith: Yet, 

Meredith's husband: yet. But it's coming. That's kind of my one hope. But there are tools out there, and I recently became aware of these tools, and this is the number two, how do, what do we do as a consumer?

Meredith's husband: There are tools out there that. If you plug in a URL, if you plug in text, it will tell you if it was generated by ai. Not with a hundred percent certainty, but 

Meredith: the entire thing. Or if part of it was 

Meredith's husband: Yeah, well that's, that's the thing. There is, 'cause you know, 

Meredith: it could be created by a human sent to AI for refinement 

Meredith's husband: right there.

Meredith's husband: Sent back and refined 

Meredith: again by a human. 

Meredith's husband: Yeah. So there was a, a study that somebody at AFS did and they plugged in, what is that? 

Meredith: A 

Meredith's husband: rifs afs? It's uh, 

Meredith: how do you spell that? 

Meredith's husband: A 

Meredith: Yeah. 

Meredith's husband: H-R-E-F-S. Com It's an article I will link to it below. Okay. [00:08:00] H it it has to do with coding, like in website code when you, my, it's 

Meredith: totally my field.

Meredith's husband: When you do a link, yes. It's an, it's, it's you. What you do is you literally, oh, this is fascinating. It is Strap in again and again. You, you, you do. Uh, a hre equals, and then the place where you want the hyperlink to go to. So a hres is a 

Meredith: Yeah, we know that. 

Meredith's husband: A nod decoder. So 

Meredith: I could have told you that at the beginning of this podcast.

Meredith's husband: Now that you're part of the hip crowd. 

Meredith: I am. I'm getting my tattoo. 

Meredith's husband: What a, a trust did they, is that they plugged in a bunch of different articles into these various tools. Yeah. Some that were completely generated by ai, some that were generated by humans, some that were generated like half and half. Okay.

Meredith's husband: And then they plugged them into these top, I think, five or eight tools, something like that. And, and kinda rank the results by like what per, like how accurate were they? 

Meredith: Right. 

Meredith's husband: So I 

Meredith: accurate in information. 

Meredith's husband: So the, so they put these articles into this, [00:09:00] into these tools, knowing how much was generated by ai.

Meredith's husband: Okay. And then tested what these tools said. Right. So they're e they either, they, either to see how 

Meredith: accurate the tools were. 

Meredith's husband: Yes, exactly. Aha. Some of them had a higher percentage accuracy than others. Okay. Now the problem is from my perspective, that these are still external tools, 

Meredith: right? 

Meredith's husband: They are. You need to go to that tool and you need to plug in a URL to check something.

Meredith's husband: Yeah. And, and these services are. Pay. 

Meredith: Okay. 

Meredith's husband: So, so they're not free. Gotta 

Meredith: make money. 

Meredith's husband: To me, that's not very helpful. 

Meredith: Right. 

Meredith's husband: To me, it will be helpful when, when stuff like that is integrated into like our browsers, 

Meredith: right? 

Meredith's husband: So if we are looking at an article or we are looking at a video, something in our browser, we'll be able to say, this was fake, or this is generated by ai.

Meredith's husband: And here's the truth, kind of like, 

Meredith: like YouTubers have to disclose if this is a pay, if they were paid for the product, 

Meredith's husband: kind of, kind of. But that's when this [00:10:00] will become helpful, and I think, do you 

Meredith: think they're gonna let that happen? Yeah, the AI people, 

Meredith's husband: I think that that sort of thing will become integrated with AI assistance because it's really valuable, 

Meredith: I think it is, or we're all gonna lose our beeping minds.

Meredith's husband: And the CEO of Google, I think, knew what he was talking about. 

Meredith: I kind of have a feeling. I think 

Meredith's husband: so, 

Meredith: yeah. Okay. 

Meredith's husband: I will link to that article below. Okay. It has a bunch of these tools. You can look if you wanna use these. Oh yeah. Like, absolutely. Go ahead. 

Meredith: Yeah. 

Meredith's husband: Okay. Number three. What does this, what does this mean for you as a blogger?

Meredith's husband: I'm gonna go back to the Pinterest user. 

Meredith: Yeah. 

Meredith's husband: Who was so frustrated because everything was AI generated, felt that it just wasn't worthwhile. Yeah. If you were to create something real on your block. Yeah. Not perfect, not generated by ai, maybe assisted or, you know, AI helped you in some way. Sure. But if you can create something that's not perfect, but it's authentic, it's generated by you humans, that is gonna, that's gonna be so refreshing.

Meredith: Yeah. It 

Meredith's husband: will. That is gonna be, that is gonna be a breath of fresh air. 

Meredith: That's true. And, and [00:11:00] people will authentically connect to it, which is really the purpose of everything. Yeah. 

Meredith's husband: And it reminds me of the guy who wrote the book, the Alchemist. 

Meredith: Oh yeah, 

Meredith's husband: Paolo, I don't remember his last name, but I saw him in an interview or read it about him in an interview some way.

Meredith's husband: And evidently he was very prolific on social media at some point. Mm. And the interviewer was asking him, how do you do it? 

Meredith: Yeah. 

Meredith's husband: And he said, well, you have to look at it like a. Creative outlet rather than a chore. So look at your, look at your social media instead of thinking to yourself, oh my God, I have to, I have to create something for this or that.

Meredith's husband: Yeah. Think of it like it's your canvas to do whatever you want with it. Right. I would say think about your, your blog the same way your blog is really your own social media channel sort of. Right, 

Meredith: right, right. That's a, those are very good points. 

Meredith's husband: So use it however. You like. 

Meredith: Yeah. 

Meredith's husband: I know you are a creative person as a photographer, right?

Meredith's husband: That is one [00:12:00] of the things, you know, so many people look to AI to generate images. Creating images is not easy. As a photographer. I know you have images, 

Meredith: right? 

Meredith's husband: And I think the thing to remember is it doesn't need to be perfect. In fact, it probably shouldn't be perfect. 

Meredith: That's the best. 

Meredith's husband: And I think we get caught up.

Meredith's husband: Like I, I get caught up. 

Meredith: I get in 

Meredith's husband: that I get 

Meredith: frozen. 

Meredith's husband: Yeah, you, you think, oh my gosh, this isn't right. It sucks. It's gotta, it's gotta look like what everybody else is doing, but everybody else is using ai. It's fake stuff. So just 

Meredith: be human. Express your humanness. 

Meredith's husband: Anyway, that's my advice. 

Meredith: Thank you. 

Meredith's husband: Don't feel like you have to have a perfect blog and do the perfect stuff.

Meredith's husband: It's probably better. If it's not perfect, just put it out there. And don't forget to vote below. 

Meredith: Oh yeah. Vote below. 

Meredith's husband: What type of content you want from me. An actual person. 

Meredith: A real person. Hey, thank you so much for listening. Uh, we really hope that you find this helpful and useful. And if you do, what you could do [00:13:00] for us as a thanks would be to drum roll, please.

Meredith: Yes, leave a review. Yes, everybody says that. I know, but it really does make a difference. Take three seconds, leave as many stars. Say something really nice about what you like about the podcast and maybe why other people would like it. It would mean the world to us. Especially my husband. That better? All right, I'm gonna try one where I'm not gonna be charming.