Google’s Gary Illyes reaffirms that original content is essential in the modern era of AI-driven search results, saying Google will focus on it throughout 2025.
Google’s war on spam and unoriginal content
Content is king is an old SEO saying, and it’s no secret that Google has been cracking down on spammy content since the release of its “Helpful Content Update” in May 2024, followed by several more updates, all focusing on defining what the tech giant considers as spam, the use of unoriginal and unhelpful AI-generated content, removing harmful content, and penalizing offending websites.
Those updates were a “Spam Update” in June, a “Parasite SEO In Site Reputation Abuse Policy Update” in November, and several in December, including an update to its “Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy,” a “Core Update,” and another “Spam Update.”
Search Engine Journal’s writer, Matt G. Southern, wrote about December’s core update, where he said:
- “This update solidifies Google’s ongoing efforts to combat spam and improve search quality. It’s a clear message to webmasters—quality and authenticity are non-negotiable.”
Original content is king
Google’s crackdown on spam and unoriginal content continued into 2025 with January’s “Search Quality Rater Guideline update” and, most recently, the addition of the term “Generative AI” (misusing AI to create low-quality scaled content) to those guidelines.
However, things are slowly shifting to AI SEO services and businesses are leaning towards new trends.
Now, Gary Illyes, an Analyst on the Google Search team, has reportedly told those at a recent #seofomo panel in London that Google will focus on originality throughout 2025.
Mark Williams-Cook quoted Gary on LinkedIn, where he apparently said:
- “Originality is something we’re going to be focusing on this year. That’s going to be important.”
Mark wrote on LinkedIn:
- #SEO tip: “Originality is something we’re going to be focusing on this year. That’s going to be important,” is what Gary Illyes said, in what I thought felt like were some very earnest panel answers at Aleyda’s hashtag#seofomo panel in London. It’s worth thinking about, especially for those of you using GenAI for content.”
Mark finished by asking the questions many content creators need an answer to:
- “What do you think originality means?”
What it means
Gary Illye’s comment at the #seofomo panel, where he reportedly said, “Originality is something we’re going to be focusing on this year,” might sound contradictory to many content creators, especially since the release of AI-Overviews where it sourced and promoted articles from discussion sites like Reddit over the original publishers; however, it shouldn’t be ignored.
Google has been refining how AI-Overviews sources its content with an emphasis on promoting concise, original content created by experts with authority in their niche over “generative AI” unoriginal content solely for ranking purposes.
Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Management at Google, gave an excellent interview explaining how Google measures its search quality, which answers many of the questions SEOs and content creators have been asking since the release of AI-Overviews and explains what Google means by quality content. You can learn more about how Google’s automated ranking systems work on its Search Central “Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content” help page.
