"It's just wrong to make money on that." AI Theft
A website has found itself the victim of a pernicious new online scheme that its perpetrators are shamelessly bragging about: an "SEO heist," the latest example of how generative AI is being used to accelerate the deterioration of the search engines that form the backbone of the Internet.
The website in question is Exceljet, a hub on everything to know about Microsoft Excel. Its owner David Bruns started noticing a dip in its traffic starting last year. This fall, he found out why. Someone was using an AI to imitate nearly all of his website's articles with inferior and often error-riddled copies designed solely to please search engines, hijacking Exceljet's traffic.
"It's one thing to get outranked by an article that is arguably better than the article that you wrote, but it's something else to get outranked by an article that was written by a machine that no human ever reviewed," Bruns told Business Insider. "It's just wrong to make money on that."
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, describes the tricks and tactics used to help rank websites higher in search results, which leads to more clicks. It serves a practical purpose, but the ruthless gaming of search engines, and of Google especially, has long taken a toll on the broader internet's functionality, ranking bogus results over useful ones.
Generative AI has further exacerbated the problem. By using large language models like ChatGPT, content strategists can quickly churn out a high volume of low-quality articles replete with all-important SEO keywords the only part that matters if your bottom line is clicks.
This is exactly what one such content strategist Jake Ward took advantage of to hijack Exceljet's readers.
"We pulled off an SEO heist that stole 3.6M total traffic from a competitor," Ward boasted in an X thread explaining the feat last month. "We got 489,509 traffic in October alone."
As he explains it, Ward fed the URLs of Exceljet's some 1,800 pages into an "SEO-optimized" AI article writer called Byword. The bot automatically spat out articles based on Exceljet's successful headlines, and Ward then published these ersatz articles en masse, quickly diverting clicks to his own website and away from Exceljet. He doesn't believe he's done anything wrong.
"It's unusual that something acceptable, if done once, suddenly becomes unethical when reproduced at scale," Ward wrote on X, as spotted by BI.
The "heist" has hurt Bruns' website. But it's also potentially hurting readers who need real information. By his analysis, Bruns found that some of Ward's AI-generated articles contained blatant factual errors, in one case explaining an Excel feature that didn't exist.
"I started to look at the quality of the articles and realized that we're losing traffic to stuff that doesn't even make sense," he told BI.
Some of the onus is on Google, he argues, who haven't done enough to weed out SEO grifters.
"This is a big problem for Google," Bruns added. "If people keep finding crappy articles at the top of the search results, they're going to end up questioning whether Google's doing a good job, but the fact that the articles are near or they can be at the top of the result makes it seem like they're legitimate."
More on generative AI: Microsofts Stuffing Talking Generative AI Into Your Car
Read this article:
Man Horrified When Someone Uses AI to Reword and Republish All His Content, Complete With New Errors - Futurism
- Alzheimer's May Spread Through Blood Transfusions, Scientists Find - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- So Much Polar Ice Is Melting That It's Slowing Down the Earth's Rotation - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Scientists Alarmed to Discover Microplastics in Ancient Archaeological Dig - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Crazed CEOs Adding AI to Home Appliances - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- NASA's First Artemis Moon Astronauts Will Bring Small Greenhouse to Lunar Surface - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Twitter Caught Selling Data to Government Spies While Complaining About Surveillance - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Scientist Who Gene-Edited Human Babies Back in the Lab Again After Prison Release - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Investigation Finds What Really Happens If You Actually Click Those PUSSYINBIO Links - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Reddit's Stock Is Already Collapsing - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Official NYC Chatbot Encouraging Small Businesses to Break the Law - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Marineland Under Investigation Amid 17 Beluga Deaths - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Experts Say Bridge Collapsed Because It Was Struck by Giant Ship - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- The James Webb's Beautiful Images Actually Arrive in Black and White - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- ChatGPT Use Linked to Memory Loss, Procrastination in Students - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Rich People Hiking Mount Everest Now Forced to Bring Their Poop Back With Them - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Cargo Giant That Took Out Bridge Had Silenced Whistleblower Who Warned About Safety - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Against All Odds, Japan's Toppled Moon Lander Is Still Alive - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- OpenAI Let Directors Make Short Films With Sora and the Results Are Wild - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Google Pushing Its Unsafe Search AI on Users Who Didn't Opt In - Futurism - April 2nd, 2024 [April 2nd, 2024]
- Microsoft's Super Bowl AI Ad Will Get Dumbest People You Know Absolutely Hyped - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Genes Aren't Actually the Blueprint of Life, Experts Say - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Tesla Driver Says He's Not Sure If He Killed a Pedestrian Because He Was on Autopilot - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Google Renames Its Forgettable AI in Fight to Stay Relevant - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Sierra Space Reveals "Star Wars"-Looking New Spaceship - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Sample From Distant Asteroid Shows Signs of Originating on Ocean World - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Facebook Exec Warned Zuckerberg Might Have Panic Attack and Faint - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Mounjaro Patients Show Hugely Improved Blood Pressure - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Wait, Did Elon Musk Just Hint He's Going to Buy Disney? - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Tesla Is Officially the Worst-Performing S&P 500 Stock of the Year - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Massive European Satellite to Plummet Back Down to Earth Uncontrollably - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- "Pro Life Spider Man" Tries to Climb the Sphere in Las Vegas, Gets Immediately Arrested - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Fusion Reactor Produces Record Amount of Energy in Final Experiment - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- If You Have Signs of Dementia, Doctors Found a Way to Help - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Fusion Facility Generates Twice the Power Put Into It - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Nicki Minaj, Who's Used AI, Decries Use of AI - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- NASA Spacecraft Swoops So Close to Io That It Can See Volcanic Eruptions - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Harvard Scientist Presents New Evidence That Samples Are Alien Spacecraft - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Transcript: The Futurist: The Rise of AI - The Washington Post - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Operator of AI-Powered Joe Biden Unmasked, Criminal Investigation Opened - Futurism - February 13th, 2024 [February 13th, 2024]
- Twitter Suddenly Suspends Journalists Critical of Elon Musk - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Experts Warn Against Strip Mining the Moon - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Satellites Show the East Coast Is Sinking - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Millions of Plastic Pellets Wash Up on Shore - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- We'd Like to See the Chain of Custody on Elon Musk's Pee After the Drug Allegations - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Scientists Working to Explain "Superstructures" on Ocean Floor - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Gaping Hole in Boeing 737 Linked to Stuffing More Passengers Into Flights - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Rejoice! Device That Sprays Your Butthole Now Connects to Alexa for Voice Control - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Wizards of the Coast Denies "Magic: The Gathering" Art Was AI-Generated, Then Admits It Was - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Zuckerberg Brags About Feeding Cows Macadamia Nuts and Beer at His Alleged Doomsday Bunker - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- People Close to Elon Musk Concerned About Alleged Drug Use, Slurring Words - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- SpaceX Sues Government Over Claim It Fired Employees for Criticizing Elon Musk - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Tesla Admits Its Cars Have Shorter Driving Range Than It Claimed - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Remember That Uber-Hyped "AI Pin" Startup? It's Already Doing Layoffs - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- The Mighty Cybertruck Keeps Getting Stuck in the Snow - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Robotics Expert Says AI Hype Is Due for a Brutal Reality Check - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Schoolteacher Finds Door Plug That Fell Off Boeing 737 in His Backyard - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Experts Alarmed After Large Piece Blows Off Boeing 737 Mid-Flight - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- SpaceX Releases Bizarre Video in Attempt to Prove Elon Wasn't on Drugs - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- Scientists Have Been Studying Your Pee and They Finally Have Answers - Futurism - January 12th, 2024 [January 12th, 2024]
- What should we expect in 2024? We asked three futurists - ISRAEL21c - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Partiers Attempt to Celebrate New Year's Twice With Flight Between Time Zones, Accidentally Land in Wrong Year - Futurism - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Adopted Child Accused of Secretly Being an Adult Takes DNA Test to Prove Age - Futurism - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Congress Receiving Mysterious Classified Briefing About UFOs - Futurism - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Driver Injured in First Cybertruck Crash - Futurism - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Kiki Goti STIRred 2023 with striking visions of maximalism and neo-futurism - STIRpad - January 4th, 2024 [January 4th, 2024]
- Scary AI Can Look at Photos and Figure Out Exactly Where They Were Taken - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Scientists Simulated Runaway Greenhouse Effect and It's Horrifying - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Jeff Bezos Discusses Plans for a Trillion People to Live in Huge Cylindrical Space Stations - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Car Dealership Disturbed When Its AI Is Caught Offering Chevys for $1 Each - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- DNA Tests Are a Fun Holiday Gift... Unless They Reveal a Horrifying Secret - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- NASA Proudly Shows Off Desiccated Tomatos Lost in Space Station Crevice - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- DeepMind Says Its AI Solved a Math Problem That Humans Were Stumped By - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Booze Affects Sperm More than a Month After Cessation in Mouse Research - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- There May Be Some Big Tech Names on the Unsealed Epstein List - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Teslas Crash More Than Any Other Brand, Analysis Finds - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Microsoft's Stuffing Talking Generative AI Into Your Car - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Those Scam Texts You're Getting Are Sent By Victims of Human Trafficking - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Tesla Driver Forced to Pay After Killing Two People on Autopilot - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]
- Channel 1 Says It'll Use AI-Generated News Anchors - Futurism - December 22nd, 2023 [December 22nd, 2023]