The dizzying pace of innovation over the last few years has forced us all to scrutinise how using AI fits into our moral compass. Can’t relate? It’s time to take a long, hard look at yourself.
There’s currently no one guiding set of principles for navigating the ethics of AI in SEO. Right now, it’s a murky landscape, muddied by black hats and the thick smog of contradictory advice. Get it wrong, and it’s your neck on the line. Google awards more penalties than VAR when it spots non-ethical uses of AI in SEO.
Dark Horse is your beacon in the pea-souper of ethical vs non-ethical, moral vs immoral. We’re here to serve, deploying ethical uses of AI to drive results you can be proud of.
Key takeaways
- Ethical uses of ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and other generative AI tools follow a hybrid human x AI approach, where AI is used to support a human-led SEO strategy.
- With a lack of UK legislation guiding ethical uses of AI for copywriting, be wary of duplication, plagiarism, misinformation, hallucinations, and bias. Data security, plunging traffic, and drops in conversions are also key ethical considerations of AI in SEO.
- The most ethical uses of AI in SEO are guided by a clear AI usage policy, non-negotiable parameters, data privacy, and a commitment to transparency
- AI-driven SEO is here to stay. Conduct regular audits of the tools you use, and don’t compromise your standards. Defend your honour.
Contents
- What is ethical SEO and how does AI impact this?
- Why does ethical AI content creation matter?
- Are there regulations governing the use of AI in content creation?
- What are the concerns surrounding the ethics of AI in SEO?
- Ethical uses of AI in SEO: key challenges
- Ethical uses of AI in SEO: 7 best practice tips
- What does the future of AI and its impact on SEO ethics look like?
What is ethical SEO and how does AI impact this?
Ethical SEO, also known as white hat SEO, refers to tactics that put the user first. Ethical SEO is organic, transparent and people-centric. It’s about building accessible websites with robust technical SEO foundations, creating high-quality, helpful content, and building links organically. Squeaky clean.
Enter AI and the lines get fuzzy. Crooks start using it to manipulate content. Blaggards publish fake reviews. Charlatans try keyword cloaking. The temptation to cut corners is real. But you have to face yourself in the mirror day in, day out. Stay strong and don’t give in. Ethical SEO matters.
Why does ethical AI content creation matter?
Fighting misinformation matters. Protecting data matters. Transparency matters. Maintaining your audience’s hard-earned trust matters. Compliance matters. Keyword usage that feels organic and not like it’s being stuffed in like a duvet in a keyhole matters. Building links naturally matters. Standards matter. Integrity matters. Doing the right thing bloody well matters. Getting a decent night’s kip matters. Don’t let the black hats tell you otherwise.
Are there regulations governing the use of AI in content creation?
The UK doesn’t currently have specific legislation providing ethical guidelines for AI content creation. It’s been left to us little people to figure out what’s right and what’s a bit dodge. However, there are growing calls for more regulation in the UK to govern ethical uses of AI for digital content creation, authorship, music production, film editing, and more. The lines are currently blurred, so it’s best to toe them.
Some bodies are starting to introduce legislation, with the EU Artificial Intelligence Act passed in 2024 to set out guidelines for ethical uses of AI. The act states that some AI-generated content must disclose its use, with penalties for non-compliance including hefty fines.
We’re always watching from the shadows, ready to guide you through any new developments. Send us a signal.
What are the concerns surrounding the ethics of AI in SEO?
AI attracts suspicion. We get it – it’s tough to earn our trust. And there are big concerns about the ethics of AI in SEO. These include:
- Data security and privacy: data security is a massive worry. Inputting sensitive, confidential or identifiable information risks breaching data regulations and damaging trust. Unsure whether to give something to the AI? Trust your gut – you know your innards better than you know the AI
- Decline in informational traffic: mass-producing AI content for your website isn’t guaranteed to drive SEO results. Expect the opposite. Poor-quality content lacking depth and optimisation won’t engage your audience. Google won’t like that and your users won’t like it either, causing your traffic to drop faster than an anvil.
- High traffic, low conversions: AI doesn’t always understand intent, so take its keyword recommendations with a handful of salt. Using AI to create keyword-rich content might get your brand seen, but clunky, impersonal content won’t convert traffic into customers. Save yourself the headache and use a human x AI approach from the off
- Environmental impact: AI consumes a shedload of resources. The data centres powering AI models consume around 1.5% of the world’s entire electricity consumption every year, and the International Energy Agency expects this to more than double by 2030. It’s a lot, but there are tools out there that are more sustainability conscious. Do your research. Don’t compromise on your values. Get lost in The Dark Forest.
Ethical uses of AI in SEO: key challenges
Balancing ethics with the need to drive results is challenging. But so is living with yourself when you know you’ve compromised on what’s important to you. Keep in mind these key challenges impacting ethical uses of AI and our two cents on overcoming them:
- Content duplication: AI might let you create 13 blogs on the ‘ethical considerations of AI in SEO’ in five minutes, but there are lots of things you can do but that doesn’t mean you should. Deepfakes, for instance. Google favours unique, high-quality content – don’t keep repeating yourself
- Plagiarism: generative AI tools scrape content from across the web, so there’s a risk they could regurgitate content that’s already live elsewhere. No one wants to be a copycat – or find themselves facing a copyright battle
- Misinformation: nobody’s perfect; not even the robots. AI can’t always determine the authority or accuracy of a source, increasing the likelihood of misinformation. Don’t mislead your audience and risk the consequences. Fact check, double check, and check again
- Bias: a lot of online content is biased, so when AI tools scrape this, the bias seeps through. The most ethical uses of AI incorporate human checks to provide balance, steer clear of stereotypes, and avoid offending your audience
- Generative AI hallucinations: if all of that isn’t enough, sometimes generative AI hallucinates too. Seriously, it just makes stuff up; events, quotes, statistics, even ‘experts’. Keep a beady eye on it to avoid looking like a muppet
Ethical uses of AI in SEO: 7 best practice tips
Maintain trust, stay compliant, and secure results with our tips for keeping AI-driven SEO ethical.
1. Develop a clear AI use policy
The first step, and most important, step to ethical AI use in SEO is to devise and implement a clear AI use policy. This should include:
- Data handling guidelines
- Approved and forbidden uses of AI
- Guidance on disclosure
- Human checks for all uses of AI
- Frequent, forensic compliance audits
- Mandatory ethical AI use training for all staff – refresh this regularly to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation
2. Be transparent
Proper ethical uses of AI are fully transparent. Be upfront with clients to maintain integrity and trust, clearly explaining when, where, how and why you’re using AI. Full disclosure.
The lines are blurry when it comes to disclosing AI use for content creation to users. It’s not required yet, but it’s the right thing to do in some circumstances – particularly for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) content that offers medical, legal, or financial advice.
3. Be purposeful and helpful
Only use AI to create content that’s actually helpful and has a defined purpose as part of your wider SEO strategy. Don’t be tempted to mass produce content for content’s sake just because you can. Quality not quantity.
4. Use a hybrid human + AI approach
We’re wary of who and what we trust. That’s why we combine any use of AI with human expertise, just to keep an eye on it. Hybrid is the future; make sure proper live humans are checking any AI-assisted content, and diligently fact-checking the dates, stats and quotes it provides to maintain your brand’s integrity. E-E-A-T your competition, not humble pie.
5. Input clear instructions
Carefully crafted prompts are essential to get the best results from AI. It’s all about specificity. Set clear parameters for what you’d like the AI to do, and not do, to keep things ethical. If there are sources you don’t want it to draw on, tell it. AI – quite literally – has a mind of its own, so it needs to be kept in line.
6. Conduct regular audits
Keep your AI use ethical by carrying out regular audits of which tools your company is using, how you’re using them, and how well it’s working for you.
- Consider exactly how much time AI tools save you when accuracy and compliance checks are factored in
- Stay on top of any updates to AI engines to make sure they continue to align with your brand’s ethics
- Most importantly, assess whether the use of AI is actually contributing to SEO results
If your gut, or the evidence of your eyes, tells you something isn’t right with your chosen AI, dump it. Go back to the drawing board and find a tool that serves your needs without compromising your standards.
7. Stay compliant
AI use is only ethical if it’s compliant. Demonstrate data responsibility to stay compliant with data security and privacy regulations, such as GDPR. Never feed an AI tool personal data and always anonymise sensitive details.
Respect is key; other websites’ intellectual property is a no-go. Build plagiarism and duplicate content checks into your AI use policy to keep your conscience clear.
What does the future of AI and its impact on SEO ethics look like?
Dark Horse stays one step ahead of the latest AI innovations, their ethical uses, and their limitations, so you can concentrate on what you do best. If a tool’s not worth its salt, we won’t let you waste your time on it.
Dark Horse’s Head of SEO, Henry Smith, says, “If your SEO agency isn’t using AI to improve the quality of their work and speed up results, then they’re already years behind. At Dark Horse, we conduct forensic tests, trial the latest technological developments and build our own robust process with the support of AI to improve results. All in an ethical way, of course”.
Integrity matters to us above all else; we live it, we breathe it, we bleed it. Get in touch today for a free SEO audit, conducted by our forensic experts assisted by AI tools we’ve tried, tested, and that tell us details we trust. See – that’s how you do it.