Quality over Quantity: What Google Really Thinks About AI Content Overload

Recently, a client came to us after paying a well-known SEO consultant for producing endless streams of AI-generated content. Initially, their rankings soared, but soon, things started to tank.

You might think that pumping out massive amounts of content is a fail-safe way to boost your SEO. After all, the more content, the better visibility, and the higher your ranking on search engines…right? Not so fast. Google’s perspective is different.

Increasingly, the search engine giant has been aiming at websites that churn out large amounts of low-value content, often created by either a team of writers or AI. While Google isn’t anti-AI, its message is clear: quality beats quantity every time.

When Optidge audited this client’s website, we found that their approach of flooding their site with content was doing them more harm than good. 

Curious to know what went wrong? Read on to learn how we helped them recover by focusing on what matters: valuable, well-crafted content that engages and informs.

Where It All Goes Wrong

Have you ever wondered why specific content strategies look good on paper but flop when brought to life? Understanding the risks of creating content at scale with AI, especially when it concerns Google’s guidelines, can save you a lot of hassle. Let’s consider why playing it smart with your content is essential and how to avoid common pitfalls.

Deviating from Google’s Content Guidelines

Imagine if you’d created content to boost your SEO ratings only to realize it doesn’t follow Google’s rules. The truth is that Google’s AI content guidelines are pretty straightforward, and ignoring them could get you into serious trouble. If you want your website to remain in good standing, you must stay on Google’s good side! You can learn more about Google’s content policies here.

Prioritizing Quantity over Quality

Though producing content designed specifically to increase your rankings is tempting, there is a caveat. This “more is better” mentality often leads to sloppy execution, resulting in mistakes like poor on-page optimization, duplicate content, and shallow topics lacking depth. 

For example, the client, a provider of ADD therapy services for children, had produced so much content that they had a blog titled “Can Dogs Have ADD” on their site. As a result, their agency was showing up in Google searches for queries relating to dogs and ADD, which was completely unrelated to their core services.  

So, instead of aiming for volume, focus on creating content that genuinely resonates with and helps your audience. Not only will this better serve your users, but it will also strengthen your SEO strategy in a more sustainable and impactful way.

Not Showing Up in Relevant Searches

Have you ever generated mass amounts of content to learn later that it’s not appearing where it counts? If your content doesn’t contain the right keywords or topics, it won’t appear in your relevant search engine results pages (SERPs). 

.For instance, when Optidge typed in “Can dogs have ADD,” the client’s website appeared in the search results. While the page ranks for the keywords “can dogs have ADD,” the client needed to consider whether this was the type of search result they wanted to appear in.

That equals a lot of wasted efforts and missed opportunities.

The Trap of Short-Term Traffic

If you don’t know already, we’ll let you in on a little industry secret: mass AI-generated content might increase your trafficking in the beginning, but it’s not a solid long-term strategy. 

Google’s algorithms are getting smarter by the day at spotting manipulative, low-quality content. If that happens to you, your traffic will take a nosedive, and you might even get de-indexed. 

Why does this happen? Initially, Google indexes new content, which can cause a temporary spike in rankings. However, as Google revisits your site over time, it assesses the overall quality and organization. If your site appears cluttered, disorganized or lacks a clear topical focus, Google will adjust its rankings accordingly. 

This is why it’s crucial to focus on creating high-quality, well-organized content that aligns with Google’s guidelines from the get-go. It’s the surest way to succeed in SEO.

Is Your Content E-E-A-T Worthy? 

Have you ever heard of E-E-A-T and wondered why it’s so important? Google’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) might sound like the latest SEO buzzword. But in reality, it’s the golden ticket for creating high-quality, optimized content that genuinely shines in search results. 

In fact, E-E-A-T used to be E-A-T until an update in 2018 added an extra “E”, as noted in “What is E-E-A-T and How Does It Impact SEO?” This was the search engine’s push to help improve the identification of authority and expertise online.

Although Google stated that the algorithm update was broad and global, it had a significant impact on the health and medical, financial, legal, and “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) sites—those that can influence a person’s safety, finances, or overall well-being, of which our client was a part. 

So, how do you create E-E-A-T content? Focus on:

• Quality content that provides concrete value to your audience and isn’t just full of keywords without relevant, actionable value.
• Providing expertise, developing thought leadership, and using proper, reliable sources.
• UX/UI – ensure your content is accessible and easy to navigate, creating a great user experience.
• For more information on E-E-A-T, check out Google’s SEO fundamentals here. 

Google uses E-E-A-T signals to determine whether your content is trustworthy and high-quality. Although E-E-A-T isn’t a direct ranking factor, aligning your content with those principles can boost your performance in search results.

Our goal was clear when we began working with our client: help them nail the E-E-A-T criteria and match Google’s definition of what makes outstanding content. The better we could align their content with E-E-A-T, the greater our chance of boosting their results, keeping us focused and goal-oriented.

Getting E-E-A-T right isn’t just a good idea; it is crucial for success. That’s why sticking to the E-E-A-T principles is the best way to build audience trust and improve search results. 

Poor SEO Practices

Do you wonder if your SEO practices are hurting or helping your website? As we took a deep dive into our client’s site audit, a few red flags popped up that might surprise you, such as keyword stuffing and duplicate content; if you’re not careful, these pitfalls can silently sabotage your site’s performance. It’s easy to overlook the fundamentals when focused on churning out content, but neglecting them can undermine all your efforts.

Content Duplication 

A big SEO landmine is duplicate content. If you’re in the habit of churning out massive amounts of content, it’s easier than you think to fall into this trap. But without a solid content strategy, similar pages can blend together, confusing Google and crashing your rankings. Our audit found examples of this issue holding our client’s website back. Pages with identical subheadings, similar metadata, and very little variation were competing against each other.

If the first article originally received 100 visits and you now have five articles on the same topic, it’s not as simple as each one getting 20 visits. Due to content cannibalization, those five articles combined might only attract 50 visits in total.

Instead of a few powerhouse pages driving their website’s authority, they had a bunch of moderately performing ones. This is a classic case of content cannibalization, where multiple pages on the same site compete for the same keywords, diluting the site’s authority.  

Suboptimal On-page SEO 

Meta tags, internal links, anchor texts, and alt texts are some of the forgotten heroes of SEO. They might appear insignificant, but they play a massive role in keeping your website performing well over time.

During our audit, we noticed that the client’s website had many blogs that were far from optimized according to Google’s guidelines. Clearly, their focus was on quantity, not quality, likely driven by AI-generated content. Many people don’t realize that cutting corners with on-page SEO might save time at the outset, but it means missing out on the crucial boost that can significantly enhance your site’s long-term performance.

The sub-optimal practices were adding up, including duplicate H2 subheadings, meta descriptions that needed to be longer or shorter, and no internal linking of blog posts. With a site as big as our client’s, the impact of this would be significant.

Non-Indexed Pages

Google wasn’t picking up many pages throughout the client’s website. Otherwise known as ‘non-indexed,’ these pages weren’t showing up in the search results, meaning they hadn’t been included in Google’s search index.

The catch was that many of these pages were duplicates of others. Instead of creating redirects, these pages had ‘canonical tags,’ which act as a ‘soft hint’ to Google that this page is just a copy and to focus on the other page instead. But more often than not, Google doesn’t get the hint, and these pages end up being overlooked. As was the case here.

The best practice would have been to redirect these pages instead of using canonical tags.

On top of that, many of our client’s location pages weren’t getting indexed either. Many of them looked almost identical; the only difference was a change in the location of the subheadings.

Sure, location pages will be somewhat similar, but the takeaway is that publishing nearly identical pages will hurt your performance. Plus, the large amount of content duplication and poor linking didn’t help.

Yes, AI tools can be used to create location pages, but you need engaging and unique content to make them stand out. That’s what spells the difference between good and bad SEO performance.

The Results are in the Data

Our client’s SEO strategy wasn’t hitting the mark with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines. Our audit of their site revealed some major SEO missteps and a few less-than-desirable practices. It became pretty clear that they were more concerned about their search rankings than creating content that might drive the right traffic or genuinely help others.

When we started looking through their website analytics, here’s what we found:

Of the top 10 queries bringing in traffic, only four were relevant to non-branded information content. The remainder were branded or unrelated queries—none related to the client’s services. While these results aren’t inherently bad, after the client invested so much in non-branded content, you would expect a much stronger impact and better alignment with the client’s offerings.

And the catch? For the terms that did make sense, their click performance wasn’t in sync with the volume of content they were churning out.

• Pro tip: Blog content that links to key service pages can really boost performance for those important, transactional terms, provided it’s optimized and follows best practices.

In a nutshell, there was a lot of room for improvement if our client wanted their SEO to really work for them.

Getting Your SEO Back on Track

Ready to get your SEO back on track? Here’s what we recommend for our client:

1. Complete a full content audit. This means looking for duplicate content, optimizing all the on-page SEO elements, and eliminating irrelevant pages. 
2. Run a technical audit to identify and fix any underlying tech issues that might be holding performance back.
3. Revamp metadata to target the right words and follow Google’s best practices.
4. Optimize blog content, focusing on improving interlinking and relevant terms to boost its effectiveness. 
5. Optimize location and service pages for those all-important local and transactional searches.

Optimizing your website’s content isn’t just about quantity; it’s about delivering real value that aligns with Google’s guidelines. You can ensure long-term success in search engine rankings by focusing on quality, adhering to E-E-A-T principles, and fine-tuning your SEO practices. At Optidge, we specialize in transforming websites to meet these high standards, helping you connect with your audience and achieve your business goals. Are you looking to boost your online presence? Then let’s talk. Contact us today to learn how Optidge can help your site shine with sharp SEO strategies tailored to your unique needs.