Meredith's Husband | SEO for People Who Don't Like SEO
SEO for people who don't like SEO. I run an SEO agency. My wife Meredith is a family photographer. Our podcast explains how I got Meredith's website to the top of Google and answers questions from photographers about SEO and website marketing.
Meredith's Husband | SEO for People Who Don't Like SEO
AI-Generated Content Could Keep Your Blog Out of Google
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Does Google prevent blogs from being seen if AI helped write them?
Most of what already ranks on Google today is partly AI generated, so AI use on its own isn't the issue.
The bigger shift is that Google is getting stricter about what even enters its index, not just what ranks well, and that filtering appears tied to how identifiable a piece of content is as fully AI generated with no human specificity added.
- AI content watermarking and what it means for text and images
- Updated terms of service language shielding platforms from AI liability
- Stricter Google indexing standards for AI generated pages
- Adding personalization and specific detail to stay identifiable
Specific, first-person detail is what keeps a blog post inside Google's index instead of outside it.
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction
[1:47] The recent wave of updated terms of service emails
[2:25] Companies protecting themselves from AI content liability
[2:48] Social platforms tagging AI generated profiles
[3:02] AI image and text watermarking explained
[3:36] Anthropic commits to watermarking while OpenAI backs out
[4:11] Why pure AI blog content may not get indexed
[4:52] Google getting stricter about what even enters its index
[5:29] What this means for small business blog owners
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https://www.meredithshusband.com/podcast
Google’s Original Name Backrub
Meredith's HusbandDo you know what Google was called before it was called Google? Oh, I I did once and now Yeah, because I've probably mentioned it in a previous episode, but it's not something I would expect you or anyone to remember. It was called Backrub. What? Yeah, backrub.
MeredithNo, I don't remember that.
Meredith's HusbandBackrub was the name of Google before it was called.
MeredithGet out.
Meredith's HusbandYeah, pretty terrible, huh?
MeredithBack like that's one of the worst.
Meredith's HusbandYeah. Because it was all built on backlinks. So we've talked about how important links are to SEO and to Google, and how another word for links is backlinks. The way websites link to each other is called backlinks. I don't know.
MeredithThat's just gross.
Meredith's HusbandBut that is what the two guys who founded Google called it. And it was only when they got a CEO that the CEO was like, okay, priority number one, we gotta change the name.
MeredithYeah.
Meredith's HusbandAnd then that became Google.
MeredithI don't think Google would be Google if it was called Backrub.
Meredith's HusbandCan you imagine if they had kept that instead of saying, oh, you can Google it? We could say, oh, just back rub it.
MeredithOh God, no. No, no. No, I cannot. And I do not wish to.
Meredith's HusbandYeah. Right.
MeredithWow.
Terms Updates And AI Liability
Meredith's HusbandHave you been getting those emails about updated terms and service recently?
MeredithEvery day.
Meredith's HusbandI have been getting a whole bunch of them recently.
MeredithAnd updated terms too, right?
Meredith's HusbandYeah. And like I got three of them yesterday from pretty pretty big companies. And I looked at the, I just read them, and to me, they're all saying exactly the same thing.
MeredithI haven't even read them. What are they doing?
Meredith's HusbandThey're saying you could you can't sue us because of AI generated content on our platforms. That's what I that's what I think is behind all this. You know, they put a whole bunch of flowery legal language around it. So it's kind of who knows, but I think that's what's happening.
MeredithYeah, people are are starting to plant seeds of protection, and we don't have anything to do with this, and our hands are clean.
Meredith's HusbandYeah.
Tagging AI Generated Profiles
Meredith's HusbandAnd and uh the one another reason why I think this is because also there's been a lot of news from the social media platforms that they are gonna have to tag AI generated profiles.
MeredithOh, they're gonna tag them.
Meredith's HusbandProfiles. So there are entire profiles that are just an AI generated character, person, an entity. And so they they need to be designated as such. Okay,
Watermarks And Hidden Text Fingerprints
Meredith's Husbandthat's new. Also, I think what you were saying is they also now are going to be watermarking images generated by AI. So the actual tools that generate these things are not the social media platforms, but also also the text.
MeredithYeah.
Meredith's HusbandThey are what they call watermarking the text.
MeredithYeah.
Meredith's HusbandSo that when it when text is generated by AI, there is a fingerprint in there that human that we could never detect, but that other AIs students. Yeah. Now, Google has already done this. They've already implemented.
MeredithUm Claude did it.
Meredith's HusbandAnthropic has announced this, and it's not completely live yet. And OpenAI has initially said, Yeah, we're gonna do it too, and then they very quietly said no, we're not. Oh motherfuckers. Which is what they always seem to do.
MeredithRight? Slimes.
Meredith's HusbandYeah. But anyway, I was thinking about this.
MeredithYes.
Why Generic AI Blogs Stand Out
Meredith's HusbandAnd I was thinking, well, it's going to be now even more important when you are creating blogs and you're having AI help you create blogs. Yeah. If you just give AI a simple prompt and have it create a blog for you, that's going to be very identifiable as AI generated content in the not too distant future.
MeredithI was just saying this.
Meredith's HusbandAnd that's not necessarily bad. Right. Like most of what is ranking on Google is, I would say, partially, probably more than 50-50 AI generated, but not completely AI generated.
MeredithUh-huh. Do you think people can just easily like copy what they have from Claude, put it in notes, rewrite it, retype it out, and then they're like, ah, see, suckers.
Meredith's HusbandYeah, but we don't know what I mean, first that could be a lot of work. And then we don't know what the fingerprint is. Like, there's a very good chance you could do all that, and then the the fingerprint is still there.
MeredithYeah, true.
Google Indexing Gets More Strict
Meredith's HusbandAnd then also separately, I have also been noticing it's this firsthand experience of watching what pages get indexed on Google from people's websites, they are becoming more and more strict about what even gets into the index.
MeredithWow.
Meredith's HusbandNow I don't even I don't mean like what ranks well and what does not rank well. I mean what is even included in Google. A lot a lot of things are not being included. And this did not used to be the case. No. Now I have I have to think this is all kind of a result of the same thing and the explosion of AI generated content.
MeredithYeah.
Meredith's HusbandTo me, that's my read on the situation. And
Planning Content Without AI Shortcuts
Meredith's Husbandwhat I th I think this is important again for small business owners, if you have a blog, you got to do more work on your own, at least in planning your content.
MeredithRight.
Meredith's HusbandOkay. Be very specific in, you know, like I like I said, we don't know what the fingerprint is.
MeredithNo.
Meredith's HusbandSo I don't I can't I can't really tell you how to avoid it or whatever. Right. But make sure make sure you're not just having AI content generated for you. Because there's a there's an increasingly good chance it will never even get into Google.
MeredithYeah, I think that alone is a good first step.
Meredith's HusbandYeah. And this is still like Early Days. This is like hot off the press type. Like this story, I essentially I would say is essentially still developing. Like I don't really know where it's going, and so I I can't give you a whole lot of specifics into what to do and how to use this information, but just be aware of it.
MeredithI think everything that you've been saying all along has been stay authentic to you, write for clients, not Google.
Meredith's HusbandYeah, know your audience right from your own perspective. That's that's like the big takeaway. Right from your perspective, what experience can you add? What information? Anytime you can add
Add Specific Facts Only You Know
Meredith's Husbandto your content facts and figures, names, dates, uh specifics, that's going to be really good because AI doesn't, or at least it's not supposed to generate that sort of stuff on its own. But just the more concrete factual stuff you can include, the better.
MeredithGood to know. Thank you.
Meredith's HusbandAnd start all your videos by saying, hi, I'm a human.
