Author: Ryan Walsh
Date: 15.09.2025

Introduction

“AI-generated content” is a hot topic of discussion at the moment, and it’s being widely discussed by many marketing companies globally.

However, the advice on whether it’s “SEO safe”- well, that advice can sometimes contradict itself.

This contradictory advice can be a bit confusing regarding whether businesses should dip their toes into the pool and use AI for content writing or not.

Some companies say AI content can be used as a “time-saving hack”, yet others, on the other hand, warn against it, as if it’s ridden with the plague and should be avoided!

However, as we have some of the best SEO minds working for us, well, we thought it was about time to set the record straight.

We will offer advice gained from our own experience, as well as advice directly from the horses mouth (that’s Google, by the way).

 

“47% of all posts are now likely AI-generated”

It’s been widely stated that out of all of the blog posts being slapped on the internet daily, that roughly half are not written by AI!

However, it’s like your mum once told you, “Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t mean you should!”

As we will elaborate on a bit later, AI has its uses, but if you’re serious about ranking high on Google, you will have to hold your horses on using AI for the time being. The reason is Google E-EAT, and we will expand on that a bit later on.

Google’s SynthID has already watermarked over 10 billion items.

Here’s the thing: some of the best AI detection tools are not foolproof. This is probably why Google’s DeepMind team have been busy little bees watermarking as much of it as they can.

They have been reported to have “watermarked” over 10 billion pages using SynthId.

This doesn’t really tell you whether you should or shouldn’t use various AI tools, however what it does tell you is Google is keeping its eye on what is AI generated content and what isnt.

 

“Rewarding high-quality content, however it is produced”

Perhaps the most insightful advice, unsurprisingly, is offered by Google: the quotation is noted above.

In a nutshell, Google doesn’t really care how the content marketing is produced; what it’s focused on is rewarding the best quality answer to any given query. This means no matter if a robot is computing and spurting out the answer or whether its a human beavering away at their laptop at midnight to write that blog post, it just comes down to, well, which is better quality?

However, we have to wade in here, throw our opinion into the mix, that is, in reality, humans will always have the edge. The reason is because of the Google framework E-EAT.

We shall elaborate a bit more on that later on.

 

Quality content

Quality is the name of the game; it’s what separates a result ranking 1st on Google from one in 100th position getting no visitors!

Yet, as we always like to point out, the term “quality” when it comes to describing content marketing is ambiguous at best.

So, let’s deep dive into what makes a piece a quality piece of content marketing:

Original

Okay, so can the LLMs produce original work?

Well, in a way, yes, it may be rehashed content marketing that has been rewritten in a slightly different way, but in theory, it is original.

The reason is that the piece of text will never be 100% the same throughout the copy; it’s going to be slightly different every time an LLM flings it at a reader.

However, it’s going to be lacking “heart and soul”, the reason being, well, LLM and AI, they haven’t experienced the real world- that leads us on nicely to our next point:

E-EAT

Expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness

You can bang on and talk about how Google’s algorithm uses over 200 data points, which are called “ranking factors,” to calculate how good a business’s search engine optimisation is until you are blue in the face.

And that would be, well, true.

Google does use ranking factors to work out how strong a business’s search engine optimisation is.

However, you can neatly throw all of those various ranking factors into one of four boxes, you guessed it, the boxes labelled E-EAT.

So, any good SEO agency, worth its salt, should be thinking about this when creating content marketing or improving off-page signals.

That is, how can we lace E-EAT into everything we do so well that we rank higher on Google?

 

Experience and Expertise

Let’s focus on these two areas of Google E-EAT: “expertise” and “experience”.

It’s imperative to consider E-EAT guidance as a whole when optimising any website; however, as we are currently discussing AI-generated content, let’s focus on “expertise” and “experience” for a second.

 

Can AI demonstrate real experience or expertise?

To a limited extent, however, it’s often clearly distinguishable from real-life experience. The algorithms are clever; they know when a page is citing shallow advice and when it’s clear that the person writing the work is an absolute expert in the subject matter.

Whether that’s due to the semantic web, authorship and authority, well, sure, they all play their part, but you do get a sense of whether the work has “heart and soul” offering honest advice, or whether it’s loosely written.

 

Being helpful (Google Helpful Content Update)

It always pays dividends if your content marketing is helpful to the reader.

The Google Helpful Update was essentially Google saying, ‘If you put in serious effort to make your content truly helpful, we will reward you.’

 

Can LLM-generated content be helpful?

Yes, but work written by a real expert, well, that can often be much more helpful, yet it depends on how much effort is exerted in terms of writing the work.

 

SpamBrain system

Google hates spam.

Google’s spam policy update (2024) explicitly targets spam.

This reinforces Google’s stance: AI itself isn’t penalised, but spammy overuse is.

It dislikes businesses that try to use spam, attempting to fool the algorithms and exaggerate the SEO’s effectiveness beyond its actual value.

Here at Walsh & Partners, we have a motto, one that means that we are one of the best SEO companies operating in Cardiff today. Our motto is simple: create work that’s valuable and helpful to the reader, not just written for SEO value.

Well written content marketing is helpful, then it offers all kinds of positive knock-on effects, such as high dwell times, comments, links and also because it’s useful, related articles are often read at the same time by the visitor.

 

Why doesn’t Google ban all AI content?

This is a bit like saying, Why don’t we ban automated lawn mowers?

The answer is simple- why?

Why ban progress, innovation and well, the future?

The real question is, what’s better?

 

Is the lawn mower better that’s managed by an automated bot, going slightly wild around in mini-circles on a wet and windy Saturday morning?

Or is it better to hire Kevin, who loves mowing lawns and being outdoors?

Kevin’s the best bet; he is likely to do a better job as he is the outdoor lawn mowing expert.

And, well, that’s essentially the same for content marketing. If you want a vague wishy-washy content marketing, sprinkled with some relevant facts, ask an LLM to write you a thousand words.

However, if you want something written with gusto, authentic expertise, and well-laced with real expertise, then you need Kevin, who is going to inform you how to keep your grass looking like the green, green grass of home.

Should we be using AI-generated content if we are short on time?

It all really boils down to this: Will the work being produced by the LLM or AI be better than the work currently on page one of Google?

Probably not, unless you’re plugging a void, a black-hole where many other businesses have not covered that subject or keyword yet.

What you really have to ask is, will my work, or the AI work, be deemed as the most helpful and original?

If it can surpass, be deemed better than the current answers on page one of Google, well, it doesn’t matter if a robot or a copywriter has written the work, Google just wants the best answers on page one.

It’s just a matter, well, who is best?

Who is supplying the best quality answer?

It could be, therefore, that a completely AI-generated answer ranks number one on Google; however, it’s only a matter of time before that’s replaced by a real expert writing about the same subject.

Therefore if that keyword is valuable, you will get knocked off that spot by a copywriter who can write something better.

 

YMYL

YMYL stands for “your money, your life”

These pages, where the advice noted is likely to affect the reader’s life directly if they were to act on that advice dispensed on that page.

It only stands to reason that now, with the rise of AI, AI-generated content will also be subject to YMYL.

Under what circumstances could AI / LLMs help when writing content marketing?

If you are suffering from, say, writer’s block, then you could use a program like ChatGPT to suggest some blog post ideas, perhaps.

You can also use LLMs for research purposes; for example, perhaps there’s a particular product with which you have limited experience of.

You could ask the LLMs to cite the benefits of buying such an item, this could possibly act as “food for thought” when writing articles.

What if we mixed in a bit of AI-generated content with manually written content- could this improve our SEO?

We don’t think so. Google’s algorithms are now so sophisticated that they are actually calculating the SEO strength of individual pages.

This means that pages are ranked according to each page’s quality; therefore, by just chucking a few extra pages on your website written by

AI, hoping a bit of link equity linking in will help, well, this is often wont work.
The page needs to be well-written to have a high Google E-EAT score, which is essential for ranking high.

 

How can we make our content marketing more helpful?

That’s simple: you should cram as much helpful advice as possible that’s taken from an expert who really and truly understands what they are talking about. This means using an FAQ style of writing, as then what you can achieve is to match search intent by answering that query.

This means that the page is likely to be deemed more relevant.

Plus, think about the things that an AI can’t currently do, so for example, a plumber may wish to add a tutorial video with a sped-up video explaining how they swap your boilers over. Plus, for instance, explain the benefits that the model replacement boiler they can offer.

How can we differentiate our content marketing from the AI robots?

 

Be original.

The more experience you have, the more you will be able to pour this expertise into the article.

Therefore, that work is likely to stand out from, say, the other thousand other pieces of content marketing that all sound a bit similar.

Could there be penalties issued in the future for the use of AI-generated content?

In our opinion, only if you have made it clear that you are using spammy SEO methods, as a way to improve your SEO.

If you’ve just used AI content as a way of adding some information to your website, well, it’s just likely to be deemed as weak. It’s unlikely to have a high Google E-EAT score, so it will probably won’t rank beyond page one.

 

Why our agency doesn’t use LLMs to write our content marketing

We work with leading businesses in South Wales; these businesses pay for the best, so they hire our team at Walsh & Partners.
This means content marketing that’s been researched, is original and will be written by an SEO expert, not just a copywriter.

 

If you value quality, come to Walsh & Partners

How our agency can help

We have fixed-priced SEO packages starting from £1k per month. Call us for more information.