The news: Google’s ranking systems don’t penalize AI content on search engine results pages (SERPs), Ahrefs found. However, human-driven content continues to perform best.

• 82.2% of pages ranked in the top three in Google Search results contained 50% or less AI content, per Ahrefs.
• 9% of top-ranking pages contained 80% or more AI-generated content, including 5.3% that were entirely AI-generated, indicating better performance when less AI is used.

Indexation drops from 49.3% for pages with low AI content to 40.3% for pages with very high AI content, which Ahrefs calls a negligible decline. Ahrefs also didn’t find evidence that AI-generated content steeply loses impressions over time.

What it means: AI-generated content can be successfully indexed and rank high in Google Search, but the majority of top-ranking pages are human-written. This likely indicates that Google’s algorithm is determining ranking based on content quality and usefulness rather than how it was produced.

The decline in performance as AI usage increases suggests that heavy use of AI can reduce content quality and that Google is instead penalizing pages that have quality issues that can coincide with AI use. Ahrefs says these issues may be:

• Repeating common knowledge or opinions without adding new information or analysis.
• Failing to offer firsthand experience or unique perspectives.
• Leaving out supporting elements like internal and external links or images.
• Including outdated information, factual errors, or hallucinations.

Recommendations for marketers: Although AI can create useful and detailed content, it may be best for drafting, scaling content creation, and increasing productivity rather than as a substitute for original expertise and editorial oversight.

• Optimize both human- and AI-created content for SERPs by using AI to differentiate blog posts on similar content and ensure posts align with brand guidelines, voice, and identity.
• Avoid spammy content practices like producing large volumes of repetitive or lightly edited AI content.
• Treat AI as a first-draft producer, then have human editors fact-check, add original insights, and revise structure.

This content is part of EMARKETER’s subscription Briefings, where we pair daily updates with data and analysis from forecasts and research reports. Our Briefings prepare you to start your day informed, to provide critical insights in an important meeting, and to understand the context of what’s happening in your industry. Non-clients can click here to get a demo of our full platform and coverage.