AI Content in SEO today — Bernard Huang // Clearscope

Bernard Huang, Co-Founder of Clearscope, examines AI content. AI content may not be able to generate novel ideas, but when it comes to SEO, it can be a helpful tool to generate ideas and free up writer's block. However, in an age where there’s an explosion of mediocre text-based content, brands that want to stand out are exploring video and maintaining existing high-performing content. Today, Bernard discusses AI content in SEO.
About the speaker

Bernard Huang

Clearscope

is a little camera shy

Bernard is Co-Founder of Clearscope

Show Notes

  • 02:21
    The mechanisms of AI content generation
    The concept of content generation has a history dating back to the early days of SEO. However, GPT-3 uses a probabilistic model to suggest text based on patterns it has learned from analyzing billions of records on the internet and functions similarly to an auto-complete feature.
  • 06:22
    The effectiveness of AI content for established topics
    AI content is most effective for topics that have a high level of agreement because it can accurately predict what information is likely to follow. This includes subjects like the first president of the United States and basic SEO principles.
  • 07:04
    Limitations of AI content for subjective topics
    AI content may struggle with novel or highly subjective topics, such as politics, religion, etc. Because theres less agreement, its more difficult for the AI to generate cohesive content on these subjects.
  • 08:42
    Factors affecting the quality of AI content
    The quality of AI content depends on the input it receives and the amount of data it has been trained on. The more mature a topic is, the better the output will be, regardless of the input given.
  • 14:34
    Google's helpful content update and its impact on content quality assessment
    The helpful content update aims to reward content that brings new and meaningful information to a specific topic. Future iterations of the update will likely aggressively remove content that does not cover relevant entities, which may be problematic for AI content.
  • 24:33
    AI content for SEO
    AI-assisted content can be useful for generating ideas and overcoming writer's block. But, it may struggle with longer-form content due to decreasing accuracy as the length of the content increases.
  • 28:12
    The impact of AI content on the future of search
    The explosion of mediocre content created by AI will make Google's job more difficult as it tries to screen out low-quality content. As a result, brand will become an even bigger factor in search, and more emphasis will be placed on maintaining existing high-performing content.
  • 30:58
    The future of text
    Google will likely devalue text-based content and prioritize video content. While its easy for anyone to create text-based content, video content has a higher barrier to entry and that creates trust.

Quotes

  • "GPT-3 is very fascinating in a lot of different ways because it's the first AI that is above the threshold of tolerance people have for acceptable responses from an artificial intelligence." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "GPT-3 is just an auto-complete suggestion mechanism. This sentence follows that sentence at a high confidence, and therefore I will string those sentences together." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "GPT-3 can do a fairly accurate job creating content that matches what humans would expect. Where AI content starts to struggle is in new perspectives and topics that are not agreed upon by us." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "By creating a sandbox, and giving the AI more data to work with as initial starting fields, your output's going to come out better. But you're still restricted based on the maturity of the topic." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "My personal take on helpful content is its Google's way of saying, how much originality is this piece of content bringing to the knowledge graph or topical understanding of this particular search?" -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "Future iterations of the helpful content update will seek longer tail entities surrounding the overall head topic of the knowledge graph thats being discussed." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "The problem with clicking a button and having AI write a 1000 or 5,000-word piece of content, is actually because of this simple idea of auto-complete confidence." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "Brand is going to be an even bigger factor to winning in search." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "I think Google's going to be devaluing text-based content. And this is why a lot of people are talking about video SEO. Video SEO is the next bar." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "Brand, video, anything that proves, I know my stuff is going to become more important in a world where everybody appears to know their stuff." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

  • "Previously, you could probably get a piece of content created for 50 bucks. Well, AI content has now made it a dollar to get that same really crappy piece of content to be created." -Bernard Huang, Co-Founder, Clearscope

About the speaker

Bernard Huang

Clearscope

is a little camera shy

Bernard is Co-Founder of Clearscope

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