Overview
- Google updated its Search Central guidance on Oct. 1 to state that all AI-generated content must be manually fact-checked and reviewed before publication.
- The review obligation explicitly covers metadata and structured signals, including page titles, meta descriptions, structured data fields, and image alt text.
- For ecommerce, Google expects AI-generated images and product data to carry provenance metadata such as IPTC fields and a DigitalSourceType of TrainedAlgorithmicMedia and to be labeled as AI-generated.
- Google justifies the change by noting generative models predict likely word sequences rather than retrieve verified facts, which can produce fabricated or outdated details known as hallucinations.
- The guidance does not define enforcement, ranking penalties, or standard tooling, so publishers must build internal workflows, named approvers, and provenance records to meet Google’s quality expectations.