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Earlier this year, Google quietly updated its Search Quality Rater Guideline (QRGs). These QRGs are the internal playbook human evaluators use to assess whether web pages are helpful, high-quality, and worth ranking. The update didn’t get much attention initially. However, SEOFOMO Founder Aleyda Solis brought attention to several critical changes during a presentation at Search Central Madrid.
One of the most impactful changes marketing agencies should pay attention to includes an update to Section 4.6.6 of the QRGs:
“The Lowest rating applies if all or almost all of the MC [Main Content] on the page (including text, images, audio, videos, etc.) is copied, paraphrased, embedded, auto or AI generated, or reposted from other sources with little to no effort, little to no originality, and little to no added value for visitors to the website.”
In plain English, Google draws a clear, hypocritical line in the sand. If your firm’s content is generated with minimal effort or originality, it could be flagged as low quality and devalued in search results. That content could be anything written, photos, graphics, or videos. If the Quality Raters believe your clients’ sites rely too heavily on AI-generated content, their reliability score could suffer.
This update presents both a short-term challenge and an opportunity for marketing professionals under pressure to scale content and prove ROI.
The QRGs don’t directly influence search rankings. Instead, they’re used by thousands of real people around the world who evaluate websites manually. Quality Raters then provide structured feedback to Google’s engineers regarding the success of various algorithm updates and tests. The Quality Rater Guidelines are a tool intended to provide uniformity, standardise criteria, and limit subjectivity on topics such as “helpfulness” within the reporting. Essentially, the Quality Raters judge whether the algorithm’s output is acceptable to human users.
These ratings help shape future updates, meaning the guidelines often preview what the algorithm will soon reward or penalise at scale.
For marketing firms hoping to improve our clients’ business or improve their sales leads, the QRGs aren’t just technical documentation—they’re a north star for building strategies that endure, even as the algorithm and search engine result pages (SERPs) evolve.
The updated guidelines for QRGs don’t just take aim at AI-generated text, it encompasses all types of content (text, images, audio, video, etc) and can flag that content as problematic if it’s made using minimal originality or value, which can happen when you overly rely on generative AI.
This is especially relevant for firms or digital agencies that are:
While none of these tactics is inherently “bad”, Google is signaling that intent, effort, and originality matter more than ever—and that scaling at speed could come at a cost.
You are absolutely able to, and should, use AI in your marketing strategies. Google’s position isn’t a total ban on generative AI content; it just wants to limit the use of low-value content. It’s possible to use AI tools to improve content workflows, provided they are part of a thoughtful, human-led strategy.
Many marketing teams, including ours, successfully incorporate AI into the content creation processes. AI can assist with brainstorming efforts, create outlines for new pages or blogs, and even some early drafts. Generative AI is useful in other areas, too: developing subject lines for emails, suggesting hooks for social posts, and helping to condense long-form blogs into short-form snippets.
The key to successfully generating AI content is how you use the technology. AI should support and accelerate the creation process, not replace it. You still need users to understand your clients’ potential clients, the services you’re trying to offer, and provide information that users are actually searching for.
Without those considerations in mind, their sites won’t fare that well. At best, their content won’t create new leads, and at worst, their sites could be flagged as thin, repetitive, or untrustworthy, dropping from search results altogether.
While you can use AI to help with content creation, there are practices to avoid. Utilising AI to help generate content is useful, but it can be a double-edged sword if you aren’t careful.
The controversy connected with LLMs illegally scraping content from the Internet notwithstanding, there are now infamous examples of hastily generated content being wrong or instances where it’s obvious content was made using AI software with little human input. AI-generated images that turn out yellow are a prominent example.
So, what should you do to avoid the problems of using raw AI output? Some simple remedies include:
You can use some steps and methods if you decide to use AI to help you create content for your clients.
For better or for worse, the AI-generation genie has been let out of the bottle, and it does not appear to be going back any time soon. That leaves a lot of uncertainty for professional content creators, especially those of us working to improve marketing for our clients. We’ve seen the possibilities that generative AI can provide marketers, like faster content creation and a streamlined process for videos and photos.
However, it can feel like the other shoe is about to drop. The current administration is ambiguous about implementing governmental regulations for AI, but some attempts are in the works. There’s the question of how ethical generative AI is, considering the abundant plagiarism and inaccurate facts users have experienced. And those questions make certain industries more susceptible to scrutiny when using artificial intelligence.
“High-trust” industries – like legal, healthcare, and finance – need to be careful when using generative artificial intelligence to market themselves. These “Your Money Your Life” businesses are held under Google’s magnifying glass especially closely when it comes to search engine optimisation. Because they have previously been held to higher standards, these industries will remain at the top of the list as AI content becomes more prevalent.
Regardless of any regulations or standards from the government, Google and other search engines are likely to hold content authorship, the purpose of a piece of content, and creator accountability in high esteem going forward. That means if you use AI to help you build websites and market your clients’ services or products, people need to be involved. It’s helpful to experiment with content as you go, using more or less AI in certain pages to test how well they perform in regards to SEO, but continue to monitor how other agencies and the market adapt.
As marketing agencies wade into different applications of generative artificial intelligence, you should ensure that the quality of your content still aligns with Google’s guidelines. You don’t want to sacrifice your quality for a seeming boost in productivity.
If your clients ask you how you’re implementing AI and if you’ll be able to make more content in a shorter time, you may need to walk them through the risks. More pages, images, or videos can be great, but if they aren’t done correctly, you could be hurting their site and your reputation at the same time.
It’s critical that your agency doesn’t turn its back on the technology, but you shouldn’t dive in without understanding the drawbacks of AI. Striking that balance will be tricky, but using this new tool while helping your clients is possible. The future is here, and it’s weird. We just have to get used to it.
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