Is Google News Broken? AI Spam Drowning Out Real Stories

This week, Google, tech giant that created the most widely used search engine in the world, is coming under more attention after a number of reports surfaced suggesting that, even after changing its policies to target AI spam earlier this year, the company still gives higher rankings to plagiarized content and other forms of spam in its search results, especially for Google News, its news aggregator service.

The matter was brought up today by a writer of Wired, who expressed his dissatisfaction over how one of the publication’s articles about AI was completely stolen but still managed to outrank the original, which is currently ranked second, and SEO experts are unsure of why.

According to a report:

“When searching for information about Adobe’s AI policies, I entered ‘adobe train ai content’ into Google and clicked on the News tab.”

“Google is taking steps to combat spam, but content produced by AI is still an issue on Google News.”

“The first result led me to a website with a lot of articles that looked like they were repackaged as well as plagiarized, some with images created by AI.”

“One of these articles had taken the entire story from WIRED and changed only a few words here and there, keeping the original quotes. The only attribution was a single link at the bottom of the page leading back to our version of the story.”

“This blog also copied articles that were earlier published by TechCrunch, MSN and Reuters in several languages, along with identical AI-generated pictures.”

An example of how spam replaces official sources and original material is as follows:

45% less poor-quality, unoriginal content in search outcomes was promised by Google in a recent policy update:

As reported by 404 Media in January, AI-powered articles frequently appeared in Google News results for basic queries. In response, Google announced significant changes to its algorithm and new spam policies two months later to improve search results. By the end of April, Google stated the changes were complete, reducing low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 45%.

Despite these efforts, AI-generated spam remains a problem for Google News. Lily Ray, senior director of SEO at Amsive, noted that clients have seen their articles rehashed with AI, looking almost identical but jumbled.

Syrus’ blogs clearly used AI-generated images, evident from the unnatural features. When contacted, the blog’s owner revealed that an Italian marketing firm was using an AI writing tool. They claimed to respect intellectual property and provided a single, incomplete hyperlink for attribution.

Google stated, “Our updated spam policies prohibit creating poor quality, unoriginal content at scale for ranking purposes,” but did not comment specifically on Syrus. Spokesperson Meghann Farnsworth added that sites violating their regulations face action worldwide.

Google’s spam policies clearly state that copying content from other sites, making slight modifications, and republishing it is considered abusive scraping. Despite this, Google spokesperson Meghann Farnsworth declined to confirm if a specific blog violated these policies or if it would be de-ranked in Google News results.

Writers of original articles are uncertain about how to protect their work. SEO experts express anxiety over this issue. Andrew Boyd from Forte Analytica mentioned that publishers often lose significant traffic due to Google’s search algorithm updates without any recourse.

Eli Schwartz, the author of “Product-Led SEO,” recognizes Google’s attempts to combat spam, despite criticism from certain experts on the lack of openness in the company’s improvements. Schwartz pointed out that Google has been able to remove most offensive content from search results.

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Despite Google’s efforts, there is frustration among publishers who see low-quality, AI-generated content outperforming original work. Although SEO specialist Lily Ray believes problem is short-term, she understands how stressful it is. If spammy AI content isn’t removed, publishers might become less likely to provide excellent content, which would decrease user trust in Google News rankings.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. What is AI Spam in Google News?

AI-generated articles are popularly known as AI spam. Instead of providing accurate information, these articles are often of bad quality, frequently have copied content, and are issues that can outsmart search algorithms.

2. How is AI Spam Affecting Google News?

According to certain reports, it is becoming more difficult for human journalists to be found on Google News due to presence of AI-created content which is being uploaded en masse. This might cause a puzzled state and result in the users not knowing anything about being fed wrong or unreliable information.

3. Is Google Aware of AI Spam Problem?

It’s true! Google is aware of generating AI content issue that appears in search results. They’ve implemented measures to track down and eliminate counterfeit content; however, there is still a long way to go.

3. Is Google Aware of the Problem?

Yes, this is not a problem that Google is just going to throw away. They have developed a system that targets, identifies and flags inappropriate information and later filters it out if it is viewed. However, improvements are going on.

4. How Can I Spot AI Spam in Google News?

AI-generated articles are typically poorly written, unoriginal, and unclear about their source of origin; they never mention an author. They have, however, at times been the ones to have had factual errors and repetitive wording. Trust reliable sources and don’t be swayed by sensational headlines about remedi