HES Content Marketing, LLC

When I started copywriting more than a decade ago, AI seemed like a distant threat. Now it’s ruining search as we know it.

Google’s Crappy Search Results

It’s time to come clean. I’m at least partly complicit in the way that Google search no longer seems to work. Certainly you notice it now, along with the bad AI advice might lead you to uncertain doom. Worried about the cheese sliding off your pizza? Just add glue.

But this problem started decades ago.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, became a marketing priority as companies sought to compete with others to get their results higher in Google search. Lower results might mean that readers never see your site, leading many to joke that page 2 of a Google search is the best place to hide a body. No one will ever find it.

I started web copywriting right around the time Google started punishing websites for stuffing their data full of keywords without actually providing services or solutions to readers searching for those keywords.

At this point, Google also started promoting sites that posted regular, valuable content for readers. So, all companies needed was a reasonable content strategy and someone to provide the content.

You could make a ton of money in content creation, especially if you had some skills and happened to be at the right place and the right time. And if you had a conscience about the content you created, you could provide a great service to companies and their potential customers.

Except many writers didn’t. And many companies weren’t willing to pay for writers who did.

Being cheap about content created a downward trend in quality. You could still get to the first result on Google, even if your information wasn’t quite accurate.

And it just went downhill from there.

About five years ago, I noticed that it was getting harder to find a simple answer to a question I had for my professional research or some personal concern. Every search seemed intent on guiding me to a place that probably would not provide a resolution.

‘Looking for how to fix a broken pipe? Don’t research how to fix a broken pipe until you read these five tips on how to fix a broken pipe. We’re the experts in showing you how to fix a broken pipe. Find your how to fix a broken pipe tips here!’

Except at no point do they tell you how to fix a broken pipe. They just tell you to call a plumber. Which I suppose is accurate, but it’s a waste of time.

AI makes (almost) everything worse

I’ll be the first to admit that AI has some practical applications. I’ve used Copyscape for years to make sure I’m not repeating too many phrases on topics I’ve written more than 500 times.

These days, using AI for content generation is like running a theme park ride without an attendant.

But on the nth iteration of Google, using AI to determine which sites provide quality content, it’s obvious what’s wrong. Search isn’t designed to solve a problem anymore. It’s designed to provide a product.

A few years ago, Google tried to circumvent this issue by adding featured snippets–short snapshots of content that answered a question.

Of course, it took no time at all before companies tried to game that system as well. Until recently, it’s been slightly more accurate than the regular search results.

But now that AI sits at the top of those snippets, and likely a major component of the snippet contents as well, there’s no floor for how low we can go.

These days, using AI for content generation is like running a theme park ride without an attendant. You have no idea what will happen, and your audience is stuck with your choices.