The researchers warn that the problem is likely to worsen with the advent of AI-generated spam, which could further blur the line between genuine content and spam. They also noted that many social media users have observed that search engines are becoming less capable of finding useful content due to the flood of low-quality content, especially for product searches. The study found that many searches have been taken over by low-quality, potentially AI-assisted or AI-generated SEO content, with a strong correlation between search engine rankings and affiliate marketing.
Key takeaways:
- A year-long study by German researchers found that Google search has been taken over by low-quality SEO spam.
- Higher-ranked pages are more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and show signs of lower text quality.
- Search engines are in a constant battle with spam sites, which find ways to game the system and rise to the top of the rankings.
- The researchers warn that the advent of AI-generated spam threatens the future utility of search engines, as the line between benign content and spam becomes increasingly blurry.