I was at a conference last year when I heard the presenter declare from the stage: “NEVER put AI generated content on your website.  Google will detect it and punish you!”

The SEO girl in the audience (that’s me)… had to stop herself from raising her hand to debate that point.

I have been reading Google’s guidelines on AI generated content, following SEO industry news, as well as selectively testing AI-written content for SEO.

I have found no evidence that Google’s systems detect and punish AI-written content on websites, just for being written by AI.

As of today in 2026, here’s what I’m advising my wedding SEO clients:

You can use AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to generate content for your website or blog, if you do it carefully.

What do I mean by “carefully”?  We’ll talk about that more in this article.

But first, here’s a quick TL;DR —

• Careful use of AI looks like:
  • Using detailed prompts, bringing your own expertise and opinion into the content
  • Writing in first person when it makes sense
  • Editing anything that AI gives you
    • Put it in your voice!
    • I’d recommend removing anything that looks “distinctly AI”, like lots of emojis, divider lines, and excessively long sentences.
  • Not generating dozens or hundreds of pages or posts quickly
• Human-generated content isn’t always that good or interesting either
• This post was 100% written by my human fingers on my keyboard 😉

Listen to this topic on the Sara Does SEO podcast:

What Google says about using AI generated content on your website (and my translation)

Google makes it clear in multiple published articles that using AI generated content on your website is not against their guidelines.

If your goal is to use AI tools to generate content for SEO, I’d highly recommend that you read through these two resources:

• Google Search’s guidance about AI-generated content, a blog post on Google’s Search Central Blog
• Using Gen AI Content in the Google Search documentation

I’ll pull out a few key points that have stuck out to me:

Rewarding high-quality content, however it is produced
Google’s ranking systems aim to reward original, high-quality content that demonstrates qualities of what we call E-E-A-T: expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Google is trying to find and rank content that is “original” (unique stuff that the internet hasn’t seen before) and “high-quality” (in-depth, thorough, made to help people get a real answer).

They also want to reward content that shows that the author is actually experienced with and has authority on the topic.

For example, in this post, I’m sharing my own experience as an SEO professional.  I’m making sure to include my own examples and research so Google knows it’s original and that I know what I’m talking about.

If I was trying to use AI to generate a blog post about flying a space shuttle, my post wouldn’t be original at all.  I have no experience with the topic (I’ll stay on Earth, thanks) and would have no interesting expertise to bring to that content.  Thus… my AI-generated blog post would probably be boring, low-quality, unoriginal content that Google probably wouldn’t rank.  Should we really be surprised that Google would rank NASA’s blog post instead?

Our focus on the quality of content, rather than how content is produced, is a useful guide that has helped us deliver reliable, high quality results to users for years.

Google is focusing on the quality of the content, not if it was written by a human vs a robot.

Appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines. This means that it is not used to generate content primarily to manipulate search rankings, which is against our spam policies.

AI content is not against Google’s guidelines.  If anyone says so, they’re jumping to conclusions.

So how can I carefully use AI to generate content that Google will rank?

I have been advising my wedding SEO clients to use AI tools carefully.  Here’s what that means.

• Use detailed prompts, bringing your own expertise and opinion into the content
• Don’t ask AI to create a blog post on a topic you don’t really know anything about
• Edit anything that AI gives you
• Don’t generate dozens or hundreds of pages or posts quickly

Use detailed prompts, bringing your own expertise and opinion into the content

If you use an AI tool (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc) to write a blog post for you, I never want you to start with a generic, high-level prompt like this:

❌ “Write a 1200 word blog post on wedding venues in Austin, TX”

If you do, the final post might sound confident and professional.  But it’s not going to be original in any way.  It will just be stuff that’s on the internet already, regurgitated in new writing.

It could also be factually inaccurate, since AI tools do tend to make things up (even Open AI acknowledges that LLM hallucinations are a problem that’s very hard to fix).

Instead, start with detailed prompts based on your experience with the topic you’re asking the tool to write about.

👍 “I am a wedding planner in Austin, Texas.  I want you to help me write a fun, engaging blog post about our 10 favorite wedding venues in Austin.  I’m going to give you the list of venues below, as well as a few of our favorite things about each one.  Use this information as the basis of the blog post.

1. The Arlo: incredible natural light.  Great indoor ceremony space if you need a weather Plan B.  A beautiful courtyard for an outdoor lounge setup.
2. Ma Maison: French inspired and super romantic.  Located in Dripping Springs, which isn’t far from Austin.  Ceremonies set against the Green Cathedral structure are really unique– not something you see elsewhere in Texas.
(etc)”

Consider including in your prompt:

• Your own outline of what to include in the post
• A list of your own ideas or favorite tips on the topic
• Why you’re an expert on the topic
• A description of your target audience

Are you a wedding pro who wants more AI prompt examples? 
👉 Get our free Real Wedding Blog Post template and guide

Don’t ask AI to create a blog post on a topic you don’t really know anything about

I’ve seen something recently that’s a huge problem: wedding pros using ChatGPT to write blog posts on topics they know nothing about.

For example, a photographer writing a blog post about wedding venues in Tuscany, because they want to get found on Google… when they’ve never actually been to Tuscany.

Remember, Google’s systems are pretty obsessed with what they call E-E-A-T: expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

If you’ve never been to Tuscany, you have no expertise or authoritativeness on weddings there.

The post you generate might be absolutely false, and you’d never know.  It also isn’t likely to rank, since you aren’t bringing any unique, original ideas to the topic.

Use AI to help you write out your own thoughts on topics where you’re actually an expert.  Don’t use AI as a lazy way to write about topics you have no experience with.

Edit anything that AI gives you

Once your AI tool generates a blog post based on your thoughts, it’s not time to copy/paste it straight onto your website.

I want you to copy the text into a document and then EDIT it.

• Remove overly flowery language
• Trim down excessively long sentences for clarity
• Swap out words you’d never use yourself or say out loud
• Break up long paragraphs
• Add any details or opinions you have

Once it sounds like something you’d actually write, then it’s ready to get uploaded to your website.

Don’t generate dozens or hundreds of pages or posts quickly

Want to be careful not to trigger any red flags with Google?  Don’t go from never updating your site to suddenly posting dozens of new pages or posts in a few days.

I have seen business owners generate quite a few AI generated blog posts in a day.  The problem is that Google doesn’t want us generating a bunch of content just to rank on Google (without considering the good content that real searchers are looking for).

So when your site’s available URLs jump WAY up in a short amount of time, it’s a spam signal.

This could be considered scaled content abuse, which Google considers spam.

Just because you can generate a lot of content with AI quickly doesn’t mean you should if you want to rank.

Instead, roll your new blog posts out at a realistic, normal cadence for your type of business.  In the wedding industry, I’d publish maybe 3 new posts right away, and then wait a week between each additional new post.

(but also ask yourself honestly: if you’re AI-generating this many new blog posts, are they truly original and helpful?  As a small business owner myself, I have a hard time creating more than one really high-quality blog post in a week, even with AI’s help.)

You have my permission to use AI, but be careful

I’d rather you use AI to help with your blog posts than to never blog at all.

But it’s not a simple “easy button” to rank on search engines.  Your content still needs to be original, unique, interesting, and based on your own expertise.

Proceed with caution. Xo. 🩵

And in case you’re wondering, this post was 100% written by my human fingers on my keyboard… Because I like writing and think it will ultimately perform better 😉