Google now rates your AI content

Google released their January 2025 update to the Search Quality Rate Guidelines and it contains some interesting implications for AI content. They introduced stricter standards for evaluating a page’s quality, focusing especially on content generated by AI or AI tools in some way. Quality raters are now told to label pages with AI-generated content as the “Lowest Quality” due to the little effort required to make it. This is a pretty significant shift in Google’s approach to maintaining high standards for users, especially considering “generative engine optimization.” The update focuses on five key areas.

A New Definition

Google has officially defined “generative AI” in Section 2.1 as follows:
“GenerativeAI is a type of machine learning (ML) model that can take what it has learned from the examples it has been provided to create new content, such as text, images, music, and code. Different tools leverage these models to create generative AI content. Generative AI can be a helpful tool for content creation, but like any tool, it can also be misused.”

More New Definitions

Google has reorganized its spam categories to target scaled, low-effort content and any misuses of generative AI. Some new subsections offer some guidance around “paraphrased content” as well since a rater may not know exactly how to tell whether content is AI-generated.

Low vs. Lowest Rating

Google basically explains how pages that reuse content but show minimal effort to curate it will receive a “Low” rating, while content that is mostly copied, paraphrased, or AI-generated without any added value will receive that “Lowest” rating. Content that is thin and has “little additional comment, discussion, or curation by the content creator of the page” should be flagged by raters.

Filler Content

New sections talk about filler content, which “can artificially inflate content, creating a page that appears rich but lacks content website visitors find valuable.” Even if the content isn’t intentionally unhelpful, rating it “Low” will help users access content that really is helpful.

Misleading Claims

Pages that have exaggerated or even slightly misleading claims about a creator’s expertise or credentials will now be targeted and rated “Low”, telling raters to focus instead on finding verifiable evidence about a creator (and if that evidence seems like a marketing ploy, that content will also be rated “Low”).

So what does all this mean for you?

Websites should be carefully curated to focus on original, high-quality content that offers clear value to users. A little AI content isn’t bad, but it is easy to fall into a trap of constantly relying on it. As long as you create original content that is focused on the user, you will have no problem following Google’s guidelines.