About this video

• Video Title: Google’s War on Scaled AI Content: The Rise and Fall of AInvest
• Channel: Edward Sturm
• Speakers: Edward Sturm
• Duration: 00:13:56

Overview

This video discusses the rapid rise and subsequent decline of AInvest, an AI-generated financial news website, and explores the implications for using AI-generated content in digital marketing and SEO. It analyzes what enabled AInvest's initial success, Google's stance on scaled AI content, and provides advice on whether and how to utilize AI-generated content responsibly.

Key takeaways

• AI Invest's Meteoric Rise: The AI-generated financial news site AInvest saw an extraordinary surge in traffic, growing from 275,000 monthly visits to 9.6 million within two months, largely attributed to Google's June core algorithm update.
• Google's Stance on AI Content: Google's recent spam update has significantly impacted sites like AInvest. Google's policies aim to combat scaled content abuse, and AI-generated content without human oversight is generally viewed negatively, with quality raters assigning it low scores.
• Factors Contributing to AInvest's Success: AInvest's initial success was due to several factors including an aged domain, a holistic marketing approach with social media activity, a professional company appearance with developed products, thoughtful site architecture, and dynamic articles with useful, quickly accessible information.
• Risks of Mass AI Content Generation: The video advises caution regarding mass AI-generated content, suggesting it should not be used on money sites or critical websites. Scaling should be done slowly, and maintaining authenticity and a human touch is increasingly important.
• Lessons from AInvest: Despite its downfall, AInvest offers valuable lessons in user experience and site design that can be applied to improve content, even for those not using AI generation.

Technical SEO Details of AInvest:

• Aged Domain: The company AI Invest has existed since at least 2021, indicating an established domain age.
• Holistic Marketing Approach: Active on all major social networks, demonstrating a broad online presence beyond just SEO.
• Social Media Activity: 14,000 followers on Instagram; AI-generated content (including descriptions) posted frequently, which signals activity and potentially authenticity signals to search engines.
• Company Legitimacy Signals:
  • Developed products (not just an SEO blog).
  • Expected legal pages (e.g., privacy policy, terms of service).
  • Contact page with address and phone number historically in the footer.
  • Careers page and hiring of human staff (like a Fox News anchor) to add a "human element."
• Information Architecture:
  • Clean top navigation.
  • Organized footer.
  • Clean and organized homepage.
  • Wide margins and uncluttered design.
• On-Page Elements:
  • Useful tickers and graphs.
  • Featured images for previews (but not always at the top of the actual article).
  • Breadcrumbs for navigation.
  • Author information with truncated author bios.
  • Share options.
  • Descriptive H1 titles.
  • Date published and estimated read time.
  • Stock quotes (dynamically loaded on some articles).
  • Collapsible AI summaries in various useful formats.
  • Short AI podcasts for articles (loads on some articles).
  • AI chatbot integrated within articles, pre-prompted with questions.
  • External links to cite sources.
  • Graphs and videos (from their AI-generated YouTube channel).
  • Multiple templates triggered by content topic.
  • AI-generated insights at the bottom of articles.
  • Active comment section.
  • Sidebar with top news, related news, and trending news.
• Content Presentation:
  • Dynamic articles designed for quick information access.
  • Absence of an image at the very top of many articles, prioritizing faster content loading.
  • Open admission of AI authorship with disclaimers.