Tips Tuesday – Google’s Coming After AI Content Hard, Seasonal Reviews Make Money

Tips this week include:

• Google recommends fact-check on AI content including titles and metadata
• Google’s going after fake authors – and what we’ll be doing about it
• Reddit is now blocking browser access
• YouTube cutting reach of parasite accounts
• Seasonal product reviews make money
• Shopify enrolls stores in all AI shopping channels

SEO

Google Recommends Fact-Check on AI Generated Content

This is rich!

Google recently updated its guidelines to warn folks who use AI generated content on their sites to fact-check it before publishing.

Here’s exactly what they added:

“Keep in mind that generative models don’t retrieve facts, but predict a likely sequence of words based on their training data. Because of this, generative AI outputs may contain inaccuracies (also known as hallucinations). It is critical to manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing.”

This new guideline extends to titles and metadata too.

My opinion:

• Google is cracking down on AI-slop content. 
• They also don’t want to train their AI on junk content – snake eating its tail.
• Google does not want to be held liable for the crap content their AI generates if it is copy/pasted onto other sites.

Google’s Going After Fake Authors

Google updated its guidelines to specifically call out sites that use fake authors with AI headshot images and made up names.

During site audits, I run schema markup tests (not just rich snippets, but for the whole schema markup).

And I’ve been paying closer attention to the author markup and ensuring that all the schema and links have been made so that Google can correctly identify you as a real person.

Again, all of this is to help cut down on the insane amount of AI Slop content all over the web.

I’m actually in the process of checking into something WP does with our author boxes and how to change it. Once I finish those tests, we’ll be covering it in the DIY SEO course.

Reddit Blocking Browser Access

AI crawlers have been relentlessly scraping Reddit forum posts. A lot of them are just following links from Google Search Results to find those posts.

And Reddit has to put a stop to that for a couple of reasons:

• Their servers are getting overrun with AI bot traffic
• Google and OpenAI are paying Reddit for authorized access and other bots shouldn’t get it for free.

Recently I’ve noticed that when I click a Reddit link in Google Search, it either:

• Cuts off my ability to read more than 1-2 replies
• Or it immediately pops up a page telling me to get the Reddit app to gain access.

In the Reddit app, you have to provide some info about yourself, like an email address and a name, at the least.

I’m guessing that AI bots will figure out a way to use the Reddit app with a fake profile at some point. But this is a good first step for Reddit to protect its super valuable User Generated Content (UGC).

Video Tips

YouTube Cutting Reach of Parasite Accounts

Have you seen Shorts that basically look like a duplicate of another account’s content?

And some of those duplicate content accounts are making bank on it.

Well. YouTube wants to put a stop to that.

They will be curtailing Reach on channels that upload content that has nothing original in it.

This applies mainly to Shorts for now.

I sure wish TikTok would implement something like this!!! They’ve already lowered payouts for folks who make original content. And having to compete with a bunch of cut-and-paste parasite accounts is not helping.

Seasonal Product Reviews Make Money

I’m delighted that my last 2 product reviews for yard tools have taken off well on my Heartwood Art YouTube channel.

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that they are seasonal and helpful for Fall yard chores.

I’ve already seen Amazon commissions on them too, so that’s a big bonus beyond just the video being monetized.

I was also able to do the new Product Tag thing on these last 2 videos as well. I have not seen a purchase using that tag yet, but one is bound to happen. I’ll keep you posted.

E-Commerce Tips

Shopify Enrolls Stores in all AI Shopping Channels

We all know that the internet is turning into one big shopping mall.

And now, AI Agents are doing the shopping.

That means that all store sites need to be AI-Agent friendly.

Shopify has agentic storefronts. That’s important because AI agents can not only scour the web and find the product listings, it can also fill out the forms and make the purchase.

But now Shopify is taking it one step further.

Shopify will also enroll your store into every AI shopping channel available.

That’s huge visibility and something I haven’t heard Woocommerce, or any other e-comm platform do for shop owners.