What is Google E-E-A-T? Guidelines and SEO Benefits (original) (raw)

What about E-E-A-T in the AI environment?

At the time of publishing this guide to understanding E-E-A-T, the internet is in a significant state of transition due to the introduction and promotion of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Experimental applications like Google Bard, Google SGE, Chat GPT, OpenAI, and the new Bing are all vying for attention as the “next big thing” on the web. Because many of these offerings have the capacity to generate large volumes of content on demand, publishers are wise to consider where this option stands in relationship and opposition to E-E-A-T principles. Let’s examine them again, in the light of auto-generated digital content:

1) Can AI prove experience?

Probably not. A robot cannot prove that it has first-hand experience of real life. It cannot possess the human feelings necessary for the evaluation of human experiences. AI can only imitate humans. Unfortunately, AI has been caught generating “hallucinations”, as in this case of Google’s Bard falsely claiming to have spoken with people eating at Mexican restaurants. While AI can generate the appearance of experience, it cannot have actual experiences.

2) Can AI prove expertise?

Probably not. While a chat bot may seem like an expert and generate all kinds of advice for you, this is because it has been trained to do so, not because it is intelligent and has earned degrees or practical expertise from life. AI should never be seen as a replacement for the human experts in your organization, and scandals are already rife, as in the case of a lawyer using ChatGPT to generate fake court citations. YMYL category organizations should be especially careful about the use of AI to generate any type of content seen by the public and should be rigorously fact-checking all information published.

3) Can AI prove authoritativeness?

This is unexplored territory. Bearing in mind that the authoritativeness factor of E-E-A-T largely hinges on third parties recognizing you as an expert, the truth is that we don’t yet know if being cited within AI results like Google’s SGE will pass any type of authority to the recipient. When a famous food critic cites or links to their favorite Italian cuisine chef or Thai restaurant in Seattle, they are recognizing the expertise of those sources. No one knows yet if AI returning entities as results will be seen as a vote for their expertise and, meanwhile, the concept of recognizing artificial intelligence, itself, as an expert source is quite problematic, given that it is simply an amalgam of training data and prone to error.

4) Can AI prove trustworthiness?

Probably not. In fact, even those sources trying to find a way to make AI fit into Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines urge publishers to disclose when AI has been used to generate any type of content, due to trust issues. Many SEOs are deeply concerned that AI will lead to the web being polluted with low quality content and a loss of public trust in the search engine results. Bearing in mind that Google calls trustworthiness the most important E-E-A-T factor, the burden is on publishers to be rigorous in providing a factual, accurate, positive user experience on their sites, despite the temptation of using automation as a shortcut.

The truth is that Google is now in a curious position. For decades, it has urged humans to create content for humans and to harness expertise within their organizations to share out the best they have to offer the world. Google has long trained its Quality Raters to value human experience, human expertise, human authoritativeness, and human trustworthiness.

Now, Google is participating in the AI race, offering publishers the chance to automate the generation of content instead of crafting it from a deep place of human knowledge. It's an odd and uncomfortable dichotomy which is causing Google to struggle to strike a balanced pose between automation and human intelligence. Simultaneously, governmental bodies are scrambling to develop legislation surrounding the use of this market-disrupting technology.

For now, here’s a summary of Google’s current position on AI at the time of the publication of this guide:

• Use of AI is not prohibited by Google so long as it isn’t being used to manipulate search engine rankings.
• Google notes that automation has long been a part of online publishing and calls AI a “new and exciting” assistant for generating useful content.
• Google expresses unconcern regarding AI-generated content polluting the web with low-quality and factually incorrect information because it is confident in its skills to demote this type of content in favor of content it sees as high-quality. It’s important to note that many SEOs would disagree with Google’s self-assessment of its ability to weed out spam and deliver high-quality, trustworthy SERPs.
• Google does not currently require publishers to disclose the presence of AI-generated content, instead saying that it could be “useful” to disclose this.
• Google’s overall position is that they want to continue rewarding high-quality content, regardless of how it is generated.

Word to the wise: while Google’s present position may seem like an endorsement for publishers to wholeheartedly embrace AI-generated content, go carefully with this. It’s vital to remember that as the creators of Bard and SGE, Google now has horses in this race and is not unbiased. What Google says today does not prevent them from changing positions later and deciding to target practices with future updates and penalties.

Meanwhile, governmental organizations are still in the decision-making process regarding AI. Italy and Syria, for example, are among many countries that have banned ChatGPT, and it’s anyone’s guess where this debate will finally land throughout all the world’s nations. Smart organizations will be experimenting with the varied use cases of AI at this stage, but will also continue to carefully cultivate and promote the human expertise within their spheres.