"When AI tools started taking off, Google faced a serious problem: the risk of its search results being flooded with AI-generated spam. If left unchecked, the world's most-used search engine would lose trust - and with it, revenue. Search drives almost 57% of Alphabet's income, totaling over $198bn annually. And that revenue was at risk. AI spam isn't like old-school SEO spam. It's better written, harder to detect, and convincing enough to fool algorithms."
"Google tracks things like clicks on search results to understand what content people find useful. Google has likely used click data for years, with antitrust trial documents naming it one of the three pillars of their ranking system. But I believe this signal was dialed up significantly to help combat the rise of AI spam. Behavioral signals like click-through rate and dwell time are hard to fake."
AI-generated content threatened search quality and Alphabet's revenue because search accounts for almost 57% of income, over $198bn annually. AI spam is better written, harder to detect, and can fool algorithms, while algorithm-friendly content may not satisfy human readers. Google increased reliance on real user behavior signals—click-through rate and dwell time—because those signals are difficult to fake. Emphasizing user behavior advantages familiar brands, since people are likelier to click recognized names. As a result, many large brands gained visibility in Google in 2023, while lesser-known brands saw declines in search results. A long-established travel brand with high-street presence and TV advertising demonstrated higher click-through rates than lesser-known competitors.
Read at The Drum
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